The Highwayman
by GroovyKat
Summary: The Doctor and Rose decide to help rid a planet of a tyrannical leader and find themselves separated and in more danger than either of them had bargained for.
1. A Proposal?

A/N: I know. I know. I've got a couple of fics waiting for attention. They will get it, I assure you. Just that with new episodes canon has changed somewhat and I need to rethink my strategy on one of them. The others are simply waiting for me to edit new chapters .. which I find so incessantly boring to do.

I've also had to take a step back recently to deal with some RL issues that required my absolute focus (School bullying more than anything else), so happy happy joy joy hasn't been hanging around me much. Need to breathe, take a step back, then run back headlong into those that I've already begun.

Anyhooooo. I have a song that I love. It's a beautiful little song called the Highwayman by Loreena McKennitt. I find it to be a fascinating tale .. so heartbreaking and so beautiful. Anyway, I started to picture the Doctor and Rose in the story and thought ... woah .. This could be fun. I can knick part of this and then warp it around to fit the Doctor and Rose and another idea I might've had. Only a few chapters are needed to get through this so let's give it a shot then!

Soooo. That said. Some of the descriptives have been taken directly from the lyrics, so anything recognizable (which is always the actually best written bits) belong to her.

I really hope you enjoy this one...

isclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the characters. I kind've wish I did, but alas ... they're property of the BBC.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The corset-style brassiere top that she wore over a loosely fitted long bell-sleeved peasant blouse was perhaps the most constricting garment that Rose Tyler had ever had the misfortune of wearing. Any breaths she took had to be taken in very short bursts, which unfortunately, led to her voice taking on a slight giddy breathlessness. It was a sound that had the Doctor chuckling against her ear as he curled around her to walk toward the exit of his TARDIS.

"You know," he teased with a wink in his eye and a smirk across his lips. "This isn't America in the late eighteen-hundreds." His eyes rolled. "Well. We're not even on Earth, for that matter."

"No," she cut in breathlessly as she shifted her corset in an attempt to find comfort. "We're on a planet with a name I can't pronounce, who've taken their culture and fashion sense from the turn of the century Ireland…"

"Which century?"

Her eyes narrowed with annoyance. "Sorry, what?"

"Which century?" he continued with a shrug. "Earth is _billions_ of years old. That's quite a few _centuries turning over_. If you could possibly be a little more specific, it might help…"

"Oh don't you _dare_ pretend that you don't know what I'm talkin' about," she answered with a huff. Her eyes narrowed with annoyance when his shoulders shook lightly with a chuckle. She pointed her finger at him. "Listen here snickerpuss. Just think yourself lucky that I'm so tightly bound in this kit, because it's the only thing preventing me from thumping you right now." She lifted her arm and looked at it with a sigh. "I swear I've cut off all circulation to my upper body."

"Really?" he breathed with false disappointment. "So violent, aren't you?"

"Can be," she muttered childishly. "If'm poked the wrong way."

He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "And if I was to lever the same threat your way? Hmm? Would that be as okay?"

Her eyes flashed open wide and she lifted her head. The question in the flare of her eyes didn't need TARDIS translation – nor did it require her to voice it.

"That isn't to say that I'd make any such threat," he peppered out too quickly for it to be as nonchalant as he wanted it to come across. "I'm not a violent person. More of a pacifist .." he winced up one side of his face and twisted the wrist of his right hand in a slow rotation. "…ish"

Rose merely blinked at him.

So he continued. "And despite your odd threats here and there to do all manner of violent things to myself or others when they frustrate you – I know that you _Rose Tyler_ truly are a compassionate and gentle pacifist yourself."

"Uh-huh," she answered blandly.

"Now. That all said of course," he continued with a bluster as he flicked the last of the levers on the TARDIS to shut down her drive systems. "The point I'm trying to make. And there is one. A perfectly good point. A point very much worth bulleting and bolding in a Microsoft Word Document…" He looked at her with wide and questioning eyes. "Do people still use that? Word?"

"You've forgotten your point, haven't you?" Rose said with a smile.

He smiled and shook his head as he peppered out a series of "no no no no no no" inside a gentle laugh. He held up his finger, but looked away from her in an obvious gesture of forgetfulness. "I _do_ know the point that I was heading toward …" He swallowed thickly. "…via the scenic route, of course."

Rose smiled and tenderly touched at his cheek with her fingertips. She waited for that action to draw his eyes to hers.

"Superior Time Lord brain," she offered breathlessly. "Never forget a thing, you. Eidetic memory and all that."

"Yeah," he breathed out as his eyes flicked their focus between hers.

"And your intelligence is so inspired that you made your point without actually having to properly explain it to me."

His brows lifted with surprise. "I did?"

"I'm sorry I threatened you, Doctor," she vowed quietly with a stroke of her thumb on his sideburn. "It's not right…"

He captured her hand in his and curled his fingers around hers as he let their hands drop in the space between them. "As long as you don't follow through," he assured her gently. "Then it's okay."

"No," she blustered quickly with a shake in her head. "No, it's not."

Silence fell upon the pair in that moment as each of them searched their minds for a good jumping off point to the next subject of discussion. None really was forthcoming. It wasn't until Rose staggered in her inhale that the Doctor found his new starting point. Very quickly he released her hand and took a stride backward.

"As I was saying earlier," he said with a squeak. " _You know_ …" He circled his finger in the air in front of her. "Before you distracted me with your violent nature and confusing allusions toward turning centuries."

"Oh get on with it," she cut in with a groan.

He smirked and straightened up in his stance. His eyes crinkled with mirth. "About your attire, Rose." He strode a few steps backward and tipped his head at the tightly laced corset. "And as I was alluding to back when I initially brought it up." He inhaled a deep breath and held onto it a moment before exhaling and speaking rapidly at the same time. "We landed on Haprietograwa…"

Rose moved her mouth in an attempt to try to wrap her tongue around the name, but said nothing.

The Doctor paused just long enough to grin at her. "Oh, you'll get it, Rose. I know you can. I mean. Well. You finally got your tongue around Raxicoricofallapatorious."

"Yeah. Kay. That was a right mouthful," Rose said with a roll in her eyes. "But memorizing it was more difficult than getting' out all those syllables in one breath."

He had to chuckle. "If you think that's tough, you should try pronouncing my name," he scratched at his sideburn and noted her widened eyes. "That is to say my _Gallifreyan_ name."

"You mean _Doctor_ in Gallifreyan?" she queried with genuine interest. "How do you say that in Gallifreyan?"

"Doctor?" he parroted with high brows. "Oh. Sure. In my language it's pronounced _Glissorganutentris."_

Rose giggled into her hand. "Really? _That's_ Doctor in Gallifreyan? Glissorgano-something"

"Tentris," he finished for her. "Close enough, but yes. If you were looking for a surgeon on Gallifrey, that's the name you'd use."

"I see why you're goin' with the English version then," She muttered with a wince of distaste. Her expression shifted into coy curiosity. "But. So that's your name, then? Glissorganutentris? Glissorganutentris, what?"

"Pardon me?"

"Your last name," she clarified. "I mean, you have one, right?"

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped in realization. "Oh! Yes. Right. Of course. Name of my house with familial extension on the end. Lungbarrowmas." He tipped his shoulder up to his ear and continued somewhat distractedly as he tugged on his ear and looked off to the side. "Not that any of us actually used it. I certainly never did. Can't really remember any of my cousins using it unless forced to do so. Well. Except for Quences, of course, but he was a right stodgy old fellow who was happy to have a name long enough to require the use of the respiratory bypass to say in its entirety."

"So," Rose began curiously. "Glissorganutentris Lungbarrowmas?"

"What?" The Doctor's attention snapped to her and he gave her a look of confusion before he finally realized what she was saying. "Oh! No. No. That's not my name. Not even close." One side of his face crinkled up. "Well," he drawled long in song. "Aside from the Lungbarrow reference. That part of it's accurate enough."

Rose grinned widely. "Well?"

He looked at her suspiciously. "Well, _what_?"

She grinned cheekily. "Your _name_ , you plum. Are you going to tell me?"

He snorted through his nose. His answer was bland and short. "No."

"What?" She sang out incredulously. Her arms quickly folded against her chest and she slouched with rising indignance. "Why not; you know mine?"

"Decent enough rebuttal," be breathed out with a shrug. "But my answer is still no. _Doctor_ is good enough."

"But…"

"Now, to get back to the point that I seemed to have begun circling around instead of actually reaching," he said quickly in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the moniker given to him on his nameday. Even though he could see Rose's lips part to continue to pry, he ignored the question entirely. "The fashion of Haprietograwa – as you so keenly noted earlier – is based on late nineteenth century Ireland. This…"

He paused mid-point to look her up and down with a teasingly critical eye. He lifted his hand to sweep it up in front of her chest. "Is more Spaghetti-Western brothel madam."

Rose inhaled a deep gasp of affront, but her inhale was very quickly restricted by the hold of her top. She winced and growled out her excess breath. "Excuse me!"

He shook his head and walked toward her with a gentle smile on his face. His eyes shifted to hers to offer her a very slight look of condescension as he lifted his hands to nimbly pull free the small laced bow. The shake of his head stilled as he watched the garment immediately loosen, and as it did so did the hold of Rose's breath. He lifted his eyes to hers as he deftly retied the bow. "There's no need to lace yourself up so tightly, Rose. Even if it was the style, I prefer to know that you're comfortable and that your dignity is well intact."

Rose exhaled a long breath and then drew in deeply. "That's so much better."

He grinned. "I knew it would be."

"Which means," she continued cheekily, obviously disregarding his self-praise. "That I have more breath and bloodflow back into my brain to keep bugging you."

"No different to any other day," he mused with a shrug.

"Ahhh," she countered with just her breath. "But now I have purpose, you know."

His eyes flicked to hers. There was suspicion in his gaze – and perhaps a little worry – but he hid it quickly from her with a waggle in his brow. "And what purpose might that be, then?"

"Your _real_ name," she answered in a very matter-of-fact voice and matching stance. "I want to know what it is."

His smile faltered and his expression morphed into something thoughtful, contemplative. "Is that so."

"It is _very_ so." She smiled her most disarming grin and fluttered her lashes in a terrifically feminine manner that was very unlike her…

The Doctor was caught – briefly – and stammered a little before finding his voice. When he did, he voiced a question that spun Rose's world on its head.

"Are you going to marry me, Rose?" he asked in a wholly serious and firm tone of voice. That question lingered in the air between them for a handful of seconds. When Rose managed a breathless " _what?"_ the Doctor's rigid posture suddenly relaxed and he turned toward the console, walking and talking over his shoulder to her.

"Well," he drawled long. "I ask that because it's really the only way that I'd find myself actually speaking that name out loud." He thrust one hand into the pocket of his trousers and scratched at his sideburn. "Hasn't always been that way, mind. I was a little more open with my name in my youth; told a few people who asked me – Samantha Jones; Becky, my Tango instructor; Susan knew it – of course, she's my granddaughter, so I would expect that she would know, although I can't quite remember telling her. Oh, here and there I might've used excuses here that there about it being impossible to pronounce…" he spun and offered a still shell-shocked Rose Tyler a rather wild-eyed look. "Which it isn't. Unpronounceable that is. It's quite pronounceable, really. Long and difficult to remember, of course, but certainly pronounceable." He paused and mouthed a series of unreadable syllables and then gave a firm nod. "Yes. Most definitely pronounceable."

Rose's eyes were wide and her jaw was slightly gaped. All she could do in reply was to very softly say his name – his _known_ name.

The Doctor caught her confusion and gave her a smile. "Now. While my younger incarnations might have been a little more free with spreading my name across time and space. I am most certainly not." He pressed his lips together and gave a single shake of his head. "I decided, back after the fall of Gallifrey to the Time War that I'd forego my Gallifreyan name in favour of the moniker I've used since I left – oh, so long ago." He turned, then inhaled deeply and with a slight waver. "I didn't deserve that last tie to Gallifrey. I let that name burn with my planet and vowed that from that moment forth the only person who could ever know my true name would be the woman that I chose to be my wife."

"Oh, Doctor…"

He turned toward her with damp eyes and a devastated expression on his face. "I chose it to be my vow to her – to the woman I felt worthy … No, the woman who thinks that _I_ am worthy enough for her to want to know everything about me…" His voice fell to a whisper and he looked away from her. "And then. Once she knows it all. If she still wants me…" He gulped. "I would offer her the very last piece of the mystery. My name."

He looked down when he felt the light touch of her hand on his arm. With her touch, he felt the tension within him crumble. His voice was still quiet when he turned sharply and pulled her into his arms and spoke against her hair.

"Is that something you really want to burden yourself with, Rose?" He inhaled and huffed his breath against her hair. "All that just to know my name?"

Rose lifted her head the rest her chin against his shoulder. Her voice was wistful and gentle. "I think, Doctor, that if you're going to ask me a question like that then you should probably buy me a drink first." She chuckled when she felt him slump and let out a relieved moan, and then backed away from him. She winked at him. "I know that I agreed to move in with you'n all, but _marriage?_ Oh I dunno about that. That's all orderin' flowers and cake and lettin' mum organize things…" She stepped away from him and twirled her hand in the air with a roll in her eyes. "An' then there's the other stuff you need to get behind, like kissin' and cuddlin' and doin' all that _husband_ stuff like… Well. Like…"

He was getting it, and he certainly appreciated her taking the humourful approach rather than weigh the both of them down with the emotional reaction. He grinned as she stumbled to finish her thought.

"Like _what_?" he queried cheekily.

She levered him with a glare to accept the challenge. "Oh, you know. Like sex and all the fun stuff that comes along with it." She narrowed her eyes in question as a smile stretched wide across her face. She gestured toward his groin. "Are you even _equipped_ for that kind've thing, Doctor?"

"And on _that_ note," he sang somewhat uncomfortably as he spun her around and pressed his hand into her lower back to lead her toward the TARDIS doors. "Let's head outside and see just what it is that the people of Haprietograwa have in store for us today."

"Knowin' you," she sang with a chuckle as she pulled open the door and skipped outside. "Probably mayhem and chaos."

"Oh don't be like that," he countered with a long suffering sigh. "Oh yee of little faith, I've landed us on many wonderful and peaceful planets before…"

He stepped out behind her; walking directly into the barrel of a shot-gun. "Right," he purred long. He lifted a finger to Rose when he saw her smile split to say something smart. "Don't. Just. Don't."


	2. Riding out into the West

A/N: ...**whisper** I'm an ignorant Aussie hiding out here in Canada ... I admit that I don't know anything that exists outside the borders of my own little universe. That said .. please accept any apologies if I offend because I'm mixing up Scots and the Irish, or that I've completely ballsed it up.

~~oooOOOooo~~

"My Wee Bonny child," the slight elderly man cooed with a pet at her cheeks with both of his aged hands. "Words cannot fully convey the gratitude we feel toward you and your sweetheart for helping us to overthrow the tyrannical Lord George for us."

Rose Tyler lifted her hands to cover his. With gentle actions she drew his hands from her cheeks and held them down in front of her. She gave him a cheeky smile. "One: He's not my _sweetheart_. The Doctor's just a friend."

He gave a hearty laugh through a smile so genuine that it crinkled the very edge of his eyes. "Obviously on your world _friend_ has a much deeper meaning than it does here." He winked. "It's plain to all that he holds you on a pedestal that rises into the heavens. And who wouldn't? If I was a century younger, why I'd challenge him for your hand, myself."

Rose leaned forward and spoke in conspiratorial tones. "You're a far younger man than he is, Eoin."

"Only in number, sweet child," he countered gently. "But in body, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to quite keep up with the wiles and energies of youth." His smile turned to a chuckle. "Oh, but it might be fun to try and it's been quite a while since I've taken chase."

"Oh father," a soft voice sighed from behind him. "Don't you go about finding yourself fancy in a child. Especially not one whose mate is looking to rescue Haprietograwa from George." She looked toward Rose. "I'm sorry, Rose. He's mind isn't what it used to be. He certainly enjoyed trailing after the lasses when he was still young and handsome, and sometimes thinks he can still win a heart or two."

Rose chuckled. "Oh no mind at all, Bess. I'm actually quite flattered by his attention."

"Flattered you may be," she warned with a smile as she braided a blood-red love knot into her long black hair. "But I don't believe that your Doctor would take it as kindly as you."

Rose inhaled in preparation to counter with her well-rehearsed line about how she and the Doctor aren't anything more than just friends and how people really should stop making assumptions about their relationship. But as she turned all of her arguments got caught in her throat as she took stock of the man standing proudly behind the raven-haired beauty that was the Landlord's green-eyed daughter.

"Doctor?"

His brown eyes sparkled with mirth as they peeked out from underneath his French cocked hat. "That's me," he chirped with a smile that quickly locked into a wide grin as he adjusted the clutch of lace at his chin like he would have his blue swirly tie.

Rose had to chuckle as she stepped back from Oein and circled around the Doctor in a deliberate show of assessing his current attire. "Playing dress up, are we?" she teased as she trailed her finger along the thick velvet of his claret coat that fitted rather snug around his lithe waist and trailed down over his ass. "A clean change of pinstripe wasn't going to cut it this time 'round?"

"Well," he sang with a twist in his trunk to look down at where her eyes were focused on the tail of his coat. "If I'm following the pack to infiltrate the castle, then I'm far better off dressing like the locals, wouldn't you say?"

"Uh-huh," she hummed with appreciation as she took in the fit of his brown doe-skin breeches tucked into thigh-high deep brown leather boots. There was nary a wrinkle in either his breeches or his boots, but she could see each and every line of muscle in his runner-toned legs. After a moment she lifted her eyes to his and held one brow high in question. "Aren't the trousers and boots combination a little on the tight and uncomfortable side?"

"Nah," he drawled with a wink. He wriggled his hips and then bounced in place with ease. "Gallifreyan garment construction…"

"Bigger on the inside?" she droned somewhat sardonically.

"Well, no," he answered with a fail in his smile. He clutched a fistful of the fabric at his thigh and easily pulled it up off his skin. He released it and it snapped back immediately into place. "Super-stretchy," he managed with a grin. "Aerodynamic. Maybe I should switch to this outfit when we're _running for our lives_." He stepped back and held his arms open to present the outfit to her fully. "What do you think?"

Rose pursed her lips and made a show if scrutinizing him closely. "Well. Might work, I guess. Lose the codpiece, though, 'cause if that thing shifts when you're running…"

"What cod-piece? I'm not wearing any-"

Oein's voice thundered out a laugh behind them, abruptly halting any further discussion about the Doctor's new wardrobe.

"You both look very fine," he said with all the pride of a doting father. "Both of you may as well have been born here on Haprietograwa."

The Doctor spun on his heel and gave Oein a respectful bow of greeting. "My dear fellow. Thank you for your hospitality and your offer to take care of Rose when I take a horse to the castle and free your people from the tyranny of Lord George…"

"Hold on a moment," Rose barked out with surprise. "Noone said anythin' about me stayin' behind."

"But you have to," the Doctor told her calmly as he set his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. "I made a promise to Bess and Oein," he lifted his eyes to look at them over Rose's shoulder, his gaze then dropped again to Rose. "I promised them that I'd keep them safe. And they aren't in any safer hands than yours."

"But…"

"I need you to stay here," he pressed with firm tenderness. "What's out there, Rose. Well. It's not somewhere I want you to be right now. You need to be here. Safe."

She shook her head. Her eyes crinkled, as did the purse in her lips. She knew full well she wouldn't win in any argument to go with him, but she would try …

…Pathetically…

"But I don't want to be safe," she whined. "I want to be with _you_ , _un_ safe."

He snapped her in against his chest and spoke against her ear. " _I want_ never gets," he chided softly as a father might chide his child.

"Then. _Please_?"

"No," he breathed out worriedly against her hair. "What these men do to women, Rose. I. I can't put you anywhere near that." He inhaled a deep draw of the perfume of her hair and let it shudder through him. "If you've ever had trust in me before, then I ask that you trust in me now, Rose. I promise you I'll come back."

Rose remained nervously inside the circle of his arms. She knew there would be no arguing with him on this. Both of them had heard about the atrocities against women at the hands of Lord George and his men. She didn't want to head out there as much as the Doctor didn't want her to.

With a deep inhale that shook and rattled inside her chest, Rose pulled back from him and petted her hands against each of the hearts that beat inside his chest. She kept her eyes on her fingers.

"Well then," she managed with obviously false bravado. "The sooner you go, the sooner you get back, yeah?"

"That's my girl," he whispered with pride.

"And just so you know," she continued without lifting her eyes to his. "I'm holding the TARDIS hostage – so you _have_ to come back for me." She sniffed and lifted her chin with defiance. "And don't you go thinkin' for a second that the old girl and I won't team up against you if you go about thinkin' of doin' anything stupid like get yourself regenerated or somethin'."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he took her hand in his and tugged her toward the door. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," he muttered with disappointment in his tone. He drew away from her and tugged lightly at her hand. "But I will implore you to come see me ride off on my gallant steed."

Rose let him lead her toward the door with reluctant obedience and a sigh. "I suppose. If I _must_."

"Oh it is very much a _must_ ," he crowed as he palmed the door to push it open.

Rose half expected to have had to have lifted her arm to shield against the light, but was surprised to see that nightfall had taken such an abrupt hold over the small cobbled street town. Her surprise must've been obvious as the Doctor chuckled deeply and leaned down to speak against her ear.

"The rotation of Haprietograwa is almost three times as fast as the turn of your Earth," he lectured gently. "This means that the transition between night and day happens in the blink of an eye. Well. Not a blink, really. More of a slow lazy batt of the lashes." He scratched at his sideburn. "Actually, even that's an exaggeration. There is a span of approximately five minutes between sunset and full nightfall."

"Does that mean the night is longer?"

He shook his head. "Nah," he drawled. "Sunrise is as fast as the fall. Mostly equal on this part of the planet. Not much daylight is lost between summer and Winter. Well. That is to say there really isn't that much of a distinction between seasons due to the location of this town being just shy of the equator…"

The clacking of shod hooves clattered along the cobbled road and abruptly ended the Doctor's lecture for the moment. He twisted his neck to grin up at the small grouping of men as they arrived on the backs of animals that Rose would have immediately assumed were actual horses. It was only the unusual colour striping and the whine rather than a whinny as they were pulled up beside the pair.

"Oh," the Doctor crooned with a smile as he stroked his hand down the nose of the red and yellow animal that nuzzled against his shoulder. "Aren't you just magnificent? Beautiful!"

Rose breathed out a sound that held as much awe as the Doctor's words had. Her breath hitched with unease as the Doctor captured her hand in his and lifted it to stroke down along the length of the animal's nose.

"Isn't it beautiful, Rose?" he questioned when he released her hand to allow her to stroke at her own pace. "It's called a Wroddosk. Native to this part of Haprietograwa and not found anywhere else."

"Looks just like a horse," Rose mused.

The Doctor pursed his lips somewhat guiltily and swallowed thickly. "Yeah."

Rose looked down her shoulder at him. "I take it there's a story involving a certain Time Lord and the introduction of horses on planet Earth?"

"Maybe," he croaked out quickly. His discomfort vanished quickly and confidence returned to his countenance. "But that's a story for another day, Rose Tyler. Something to share over tea in the library, maybe." He lifted his hands and clutched fistfuls of the beast's mane. With a moan for effort, he hauled himself up and kicked over the back of the beast to settle in a leather saddle.

"Right now," he continued. "We have much more urgent matters to tend to. Storytelling can come later."

"Yeah, okay," she answered with a roll in her eyes as she accepted a gilded rapier from Oein and lifted it to offer to the Doctor. "But let's get one thing clear, Doctor. No new pets on the TARDIS, yeah?" She petted the Wroddosk's shoulder. "No matter how magnificent this creature is, you're not bringing it home with you."

"One," the Doctor chirped with a waggle of his finger at the rapier. "I refuse to carry that thing with me. Rose, you know how I abhor weaponry…"

She cooed a slightly disappointed sound. "Oh, but come on. It'll finish up your entire ensemble if you have a sparkling gold sword on your hip. Without it your outfit is incomplete!"

"Well, then," he muttered with a sneer. Why don't you pass me a musket to tuck into my boots as well?"

Rose rolled her eyes, but smiled an all-knowing stretch of her lips. "I'll just hang on to it, then."

"You do that," he agreed. "Keep it and yourself safe, yeah?"

Rose nodded. "So. Two?"

His brows pinched in confusion. "Two _what_?"

"Well, you indicated that the sword was point number one."

"I did?"

"You did," she confirmed. "So the second point?"

The Doctor smirked and shook his head. "You know, Rose Tyler. I really can't remember. And if I can't remember my secondary point, then it can't have been particularly important, can it?"

"Oh, and here I was thinkin' that anythin' you had to say was vitally important."

He grinned and made a very happy noise in the back of his throat. "And therein lies yet another reason why I like you so much, Rose Tyler…"

"Good for your ego?" she queried cheekily.

He threw his head back and let out a genuinely happy laugh. "Oh _that_ and _much_ more, Rose."

An impatient clopping of shod hooves on the cobble stone and an equally impatient male voice sounded out to their left.

"Share your farewells with your love and let's be off." He extended a gloved hand curled to a pointed finger that indicated the horizon. "Night patrol will be out shortly, and we need to be sure that we've safely passed before they venture into the darkness."

"Oh, we aren't lovers," Rose corrected at the same time that the Doctor cheekily held his hand to his heart and theatrically spoke a poetic farewell to a lover.

Rose thumped him on the thigh. "You daft git."

"Oh," he coughed out as though wounded. "My bonny sweetheart pierces a hole into my hearts with her vicious and violent attack upon my thigh."

"Stop it."

"It might ease my pain if you could give me but one kiss, my fair and gentle maiden."

"I mean it, Doctor."

He rose up high in his stirrups and then leaned to one side toward his amused companion. There was a wink in his eye. "Just one kiss, my Bonny Sweetheart," he cooed. "And then look for me by the moonlight. Watch for me by the moonlight. I'll come to thee by the moonlight"

"Through hell should bar the way," she droned flatly. "Yes, Doctor. I know the song. Try for originality, will you?"

He gasped in affront. "I'll have you know, Rose Tyler, that those words are very original. At least they were when I wrote them."

"Are you sayin' that you wrote that song, Doctor?"

"I'm not saying that I didn't."

Rose's mouth floundered a little in surprise. She wasn't entirely sure if he was being honest, or was merely being a little shit. The twinkle in his eye and the growing smirk on his face was the tell she needed to know that he was having her on.

She let out a growl and pointed a finger up at him. "I'm goin' to call you _Stockyard_ from now on, Doctor."

He hummed curiously. "Why's that?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "What's a stockyard full of, Doctor?"

"Stock, as in animals?"

"And what is the natural by-product of animals, then?"

He looked up to the sky and considered that a moment. Just what could animals produce that Rose could be using as an insult… Oh. Right. His eyes widened and then narrowed.

"That's very disgusting, and so not me at all."

She chuckled as she rose up onto her toes to attempt to get a hug from him. She was disappointed to find that he sat too high to do more than clutch each other's hands in a supportive gesture. She let out a breath of shock when he bent forward to kiss at her knuckles.

"I'll be back, Rose," he promised her inside a whisper of assurance. "I promise you." He looked up to the horizon. "Before the sun breaks, yeah?"

"I'll come find you if you're not back by then," she whispered, unable to shield the worry in her voice. "Right?"

He gave her a wink and rose up tall in the saddle. With a cry to the night sky and a kick of his heels, the Doctor tugged at the reigns and galloped toward the West.

Rose remained in place, barely shifting a muscle, as she waited for the thundering hoof falls of the small pack of men fade out in the distance. She strained for hearing as the thunder – softened into sweet melody by the distance – finally disappeared completely.

"Come on, Child," Bess urged kindly. "Best that we wait inside for your love to return."

Rose's eyes remained on the horizon. Her voice was nary a whisper when she replied. "He's not my love."

Bess put her hands on Rose's shoulder in a gentle attempt to turn her and guide her toward the stone cottage inn. "Come inside. Let us have tea."

In the distance, the sound of hooves once again sang out in the night. Rose immediately stiffened, although she didn't know if it was through fear as to what was coming, or through relief that the Doctor was already on his return. A grin began to blossom on her face and she spun on the ground to welcome her Time Lord back with open arms.

The vision of red coats atop several Wroddosk beasts – in a number that far exceeded the amount of men who had only just left the inn – burst through the cloak of darkness to materialize like a whining TARDIS as they drew closer.

Rose staggered a single stride backward and braced herself for a fight. She turned her head to yell over her shoulder as she pulled the rapier from its gilded sheath. "It's Lord George's men!" she cried out loudly. "Bess, Oein, get inside. I'll hold them off"

Oein laughed against her ear as his arms – much stronger than his frail exterior led her to believe – circled around her arms to lock them at her side. "I don't think so, my bonny lass."

Rose struggled with confusion, but found escape impossible. She panted with panic. "What're you doing?"

Bess sneered down her shoulder as she stepped ahead of Rose and Oein to welcome the galloping troop of Royal soldiers.

"We have the girl," she announced to the lead rider as he drew his steed to a huffing halt only a foot away from her. "Her lover is with Aedan and his men." She sneered a darkened smile. "Heading toward the West."

The guard dropped gracefully from the saddle of his steed, landing on straightened legs that took him into an immediate walk toward Rose. He sniffed and then snorted derisively as he roughly pinched Rose's chin between his thumb and index finger and lifted her face into the light of a candle's flame.

"Your Lord will be most pleased that you have aided in apprehending the leaders of the resistance." His eyes flicked up to Oein, and then back down to Rose. "I will admit that she's a fine specimen, this one," he purred disgustedly, even though his eyes seemed to hold some sense of appreciation in them. "She will make a welcome addition to the Lord's chamber."

Rose immediately spat into the man's face. "I'm not goin' to anyone's-"

The rest of her words cut sharply in time with an horrific strike of the back of a hand across her face with such brutal force that darkness took her almost immediately.

Her last thought before falling was to beg the TARDIS to warn the Doctor that he was heading into a trap.


	3. Sacrifice

A/N: Time to add an update across the board on these fics rather than simply focusing on just one ... this is good .. gives me time to properly consider where I'm headed next on each and every one.

I know this fic isn't popular, but if you're reading, I hope you like this chapter!

Which fic do I update next?

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose Tyler's eyes were devoid of any real emotion that didn't include absolute and utter indignation as she stared at the wall straight ahead of her and sighed heavily. It was a sigh more weary than indignant, and it seemed to please the man standing in front of her. He gave her a leering stare and matching grin as kicked impatiently at the man crouched ahead of him.

"Set the musket at her breast," he ordered in a voice more slimy than even the sleaziest man she'd ever encountered in any seedy London bar. "Between her knees and up against bosom – let it be the very last thing to ever venture there."

Rose's eyes flicked angrily to one side to offer him a look of utter disgust, but she said nothing. She continued to remain silent as he slowly lowered into a crouch in front of her and took her chin in his large, weathered hand.

"Or should we part the knees and let each man take his fill, first," he snarled as his fingers dug deep into the hollows of her cheeks. "Let your last memories of this life be the contorted face of a man violating and taking his prize."

Rose's lip curled with disgust. She wasn't going to betray her carefully crafted calm exterior by showing any of the fear she felt at his words. She made sure that her voice was laden with utter repulsion as she breathed out a single word in reply: "pig."

Behind her a red-coat wearing man roughly tugged and tied her hands against a bed-post behind her. He growled hotly against her ear in words and syllables that spoke of his hatred toward her, no doubt with the intent to intimidate her into keeping still and quiet for him. She tried her best to ignore the slurred litany against her hair and kept her eyes on the monster of a man looming over her.

"Oh do settle yourself," he warned his accomplice at Rose's back. "Filthy Off Worlders like this one don't deserve your precious time nor your words."

Rose smirked. "The Filthy Off Worlder is right here, ta." Her eyes fell to a half-lidded stare of contempt. "And obviously, I'm worth a lot of both your time and your words, if the last half hour's been any indication."

Anything further she had to say on the matter degenerated into a low hiss of suppressed pain as a flattened hand blazed across her cheek in a furious blow.

"You will shut your mouth," he demanded with voice thunderous with fury as he roughly cupped her chin in his hand and squeezed her cheeks painfully with his thumb and fingers. He forced her chin upward and moved his head closer to exaggerate his appraisal of her face. "Large though it is," he sneered. "I imagine that all it wants to do is flap about nonsense in the breeze."

Rose glared angrily down along her nose at him, but said nothing further. She didn't even offer him any kind of readable expression. Fortunately, the fear she felt within, and the energy it required to suppress any sign of her terror enabled her adequately remain without any form of expressive façade at all.

After a long moment her aggressor released her chin, but not before he squeezed at the hollows of her cheeks hard enough for her teeth to cut into the soft skin of her cheeks. She tasted the metallic tang of iron against her tongue and shuddered.

…It was a noticeable shudder that made her attackers laugh triumphantly.

"Terrified, aren't you?" He bellowed out amongst the huffs of laughter. When chose to merely glare at him from around the muzzle of the musket instead of snap back an answer, his laughter died. His voice took on a far more menacing tone. "Feel free to cry, my dear," he murmered with faux tenderness in his voice. "We can't look much further below toward you than we do now."

Rose muttered something inaudible and continued to glare at him.

Her attacker stood tall and loomed over her. He set his fists on his hips and puffed out his chest to look down along the buttons of his tunic at her. "What did you say?"

Rose murmured quietly again, but said nothing he could hear.

"I said speak!" he bellowed with a stomp of his foot on the tiled floor beneath his boots. "I'm not opposed to …"

"I said," Rose interrupted as she slowly lifted her chin with forced defiance. "You've made a mistake. I very big one."

He snorted derisively at her. "Oh," he managed with amusement staining his tone. "I think you'll find that any mistakes made were all made by you and your friend."

"That's where you're wrong," she corrected coolly and without emotion. "You see. My _friend_ : the _Doctor_. He's not as playful a little puppy as you think he is."

Her attacker sniffed and rolled his eyes. "Oh," he began with a long suffering sigh. "How many times must I be given a warning like this from you pathetic mates of even more pathetic excuses for men?"

Rose let a brow flick upward into a perfectly manicured arch. There was a smile on her bloody lip. "Just how many times have you found yourself threatening the friend of a Time Lord, then?" As his brows lifted with recognition to the Doctor's species her tongue slowly shifted to lick the blood on her upper lip in some sort of morbid victory. "You _do know_ that he's a Time Lord, yeah?"

"I didn't," her captor breathed back slowly in reply. "A _Time Lord_ , you say? As in from _Gallifrey_?"

His voice was quiet and held what Rose assumed was a sliver of fear. It made her smile a very dangerous smirk, and she lowered the register of her own voice in response. "I see you've heard of it."

"Gallifrey's dead," he corrected darkly. "Destroyed in the War _they_ created."

She hummed before answering with a smile. "And you think that there wasn't a single survivor?" Her grin thinned out so that she could chuckle. "They're a planet of time travellers, there could be any number of them still swannin' about 'round the universe."

Rose let out a yelp as a hand forcibly shoved the musket aside and slammed against her bosom. Sharp and gnarled fingertips searched through the bunched cotton fabric of her bodice to find purchase against her skin and then held hard. Her captive ignored her vocal protests and the violent squirming and let himself concentrate on the feeling beneath his flattened palm. He murmured something that Rose couldn't quite catch, then growled and snatched his hand away as though burned.

Rose narrowed her glare at him and let her mind's eye tear him limb from limb; ruing that her hands were tied together in front of her leaving her unable to do it in reality.

"Touch me like that again, arsehole, and you'll be sorry."

His eyes flashed madly toward her. He grunted as he set the barrel of the musket between her breasts. His eyes didn't lift to hers, but the rising ghost of his breath carried a pair of words upward into her face.

"One heart."

Rose snorted. "Yeah? What about it?"

His eyes finally lifted. "Time Lords have _two_ hearts," he growled out. " _You_ have _one_. Don't think you can trick me with your lies about being a Time Lord."

"Never said _I_ was the Time Lord," she snarled in reply. "The _Doctor's_ the Time Lord." She smirked. "I'm _Human_."

He snorted in reply. "A Time Lord and a Human? Don't be so foolish. The sanctimonious idiots on Gallifrey wouldn't lower themselves to play around with a species as worthless as a _Human_."

"Human's aren't worthless," she snapped back in rebuttal as she renewed her attempt to struggle free of her binding. "An' you ask me, the only sanctimonious ponce around here is you – thinkin' you're all that and then some." She leaned forward as far as she could with the musket at her breast and sneered into his face. "You know what they call 'im; the Doctor? Out on Skaro where the Daleks swan about?"

His eyes lifted and his breath slowed in interest, but he said nothing.

"Oh, yeah," she whispered with a smile. "Got your attention now 'aven't I?"

She wore a smirk of victory as she leaned back again and tried to rest comfortably against the bedpost at her back. "Call 'im the Oncoming Storm, they do. Terrified of 'him. The Doctor .. _my_ Doctor … is the only creature in this entire universe that is feared by the Daleks."

The Captor licked nervously at his lip. The thickness of his swallow was evident with the rise and fall of his adam's apple.

"Killed them all," she continued with a low voice. "Each an' every one of those killer pepper pots he did."

Her captor's voice was quiet, perhaps fearful. "And you, _human_ , you're his mate?"

"Best mate," she clarified. "Close as anythin' he and me are." She licked at her lip and lifted her brows in challenge. "And you've got me trapped and bound here. He's not goin' to like that too much. When he finds out that he's been betrayed, he's comin' back for me."

He lifted himself to his full height to loom over her. His hands fisted tightly and he pressed them into his hips. "Right into an ambush of my finest gunmen."

His face shifted into a grin at the sudden wash of horrored realisation that crossed her features.

"The team he rode out with, _Human_ …" He paused long enough to laugh. "Not one of them is part of the rebellion against our King."

Her voice was meek, despite her efforts to make herself appear to be brave and unaffected. "how can you be so sure of that?"

"Quite easily," he said with a laugh. "Because they're the same group of men that ride out with all the infidels who think they can come to our planet and try to take over."

Rose gasped and shook her head. "But that's not what he's tryin' to do. He was asked to help, and that's what we're doin'!" She renewed her struggle. "Please! You can't do this to him. The Doctor doesn't mean anyone harm. He helps people, that's what he does…"

"Sticks his nose in where it doesn't belong, you mean," he clarified with a growl. "And all busybodies have to be taught to keep their noses out of everyone else's business."

"So that's what this is about, then?" she blustered out with panic. "This is all about teachin' him a lesson?"

He smiled and gave a single sharp nod of his head. "Yes."

"By killin' him?"

"Best way to pass on the lesson, don't you think?"

She shook her head and struggled new. "It's pointless! How's he goin' to learn any lesson if he's dead?"

Her captor merely shrugged. "Who said the lesson's for him, Human?" He thrust a finger toward the window in a gesture toward the people outside. "The lesson's for _them_ : Not to defy the laws of our king!"

He dropped into a crouch before her and roughly cupped her chin in his hand. "Word spreads fast throughout the cosmos, don't you know. This serves as a warning to all of them. A warning to anyone out there wanting to come to our planet and try to take control from our lord and King."

Tears filled her eyes and she tried to shake her head although it was held firm by her captor. Her worried voice broke. "You can't. This isn't right."

"It _is_ right," he corrected softly, almost tenderly. The tenderness fled quickly, however, and was replaced with a triumphant sneer. "And if we can take down a Lord of Time, the last of the Gallifreyans and the man who terrifies even the Daleks themselves …" He gave her a soft and throaty chuckle. "Then no one will dare come down with a challenge."

"Kill me instead," she pleaded.

His eyes flashed wide and his brows lifted high. "Pardon me?"

"You heard me," she begged through her tears. "You want to punish 'im? Fine then punish him. You don't have to kill him."

"Oh," he answered with a condescending breath. "But I think I do."

She shook her head and struggled harder. "Kill me. That'll teach him whatever lesson you want. Just please … _please_ … don't hurt him."

He offered her a very condescending expression and stroked at her wetted cheeks. "Oh my dear," he breathed out softly. "While I know the torture that killing a mate of a Time Lord will bring him…"

"Better than death, yeah?" she ventured eagerly. She knew that the Doctor would survive her death, that he'd move on as he always had. Oh, he'd grieve her loss – she had no doubt about that – but he'd survive and – hopefully – use her death and her name inside his hearts to keep fighting.

"Much better than killin' him," she pleaded again.

He swept his finger through her tears and then lifted it to his tongue to taste the saltiness of her agony. "Such a valiant young thing, aren't you?" He chuckled and shrugged a shoulder. "Well. No. Not really. You've been very easy to break."

Her voice fell to a whisper that was barely audible. "Please don't do this. He's a good man, the Doctor. He doesn't deserve this."

"Oh," he sang with a smile. "Of course he does. You _all_ do."

"There are worse punishments than death…"

"No," he corrected her with a pet at her cheek. "There really aren't." He leaned down lose to her ear and shifted the musket at her breast. "But I'll tell you what?"

She inhaled a shaking, but hopeful breath. "What?"

He nuzzled his rough jaw against her cheek and spoke against her ear. "Gallifreyans are telepathic," he began softly. "Their bonds with their mates are known across the universe as the strongest connection across the entire universe."

He chuckled when he heard her gulp against his ear, and then hummed appreciatively. "You probably don't feel the connection between you as much as he does; what, with your inferior human brain unable to fully embrace that telepathic link."

He unhitched the musket from her breast and drew himself up to a stand. He watched the muzzle of the weapon as it hung at his side. "Chances are you don't even feel the link he has with you." He lifted only his eyes to hers. "But I assure you that he can. He feels everything that you feel right now: Hopelessness, fear, confusion … resignation, maybe?"

"He can't," she whispered softly. "He and me. We're only mates, that's all. All we are, and all we ever will be."

"Mates," he growled with anger. "That's it precisely. You are his _mate_ , and therefore he is very intimately and permanently bound to you." He waved his hand at her. "And don't bother trying to tell me that the two of you aren't bound. He's a Time Lord. The only way he'd spend any time with a mere Human such as yourself, and show any form of the protectiveness that you've described, is if he is bound by the holy rites of his people."

"He'd have to hang about me for a bit first, before he decided to do any bonding at all," she muttered to herself, inaudible to her captor.

"…So therefore,' he continued with a grin as he waved the musket around like a conducting baton. "If I kill _you_ ," he pointed the stick at her, "then he's going to feel not only she sheer agonising pain that you experience at the muzzle of my musket, but the obliterating pain of his telepathic connection to you as it severs and tears itself from his mind."

Rose's breath staggered in and out of her chest at the thought.

"Oh," he continued with song. "He'll beg me for death at that juncture, my dear. Beg for it." He then looked her up and down with a lifted brow and a lick at his lip. "If we had time, then perhaps I – or one of my men – could increase his agony by violating you first…"

He paused to watch her shuffle backward, harder against the pole at her back.

She chuckled and looked up at the wall toward an ornate clock beside the door. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head. "Lucky for you both, I'm on a tight schedule."

Without another word he lifted the musket and aimed the barrel toward her. His tongue brushed out to swipe across her lip and he gave her one last appreciative appraisal.

"Please don't," she pleaded on a whisper. "He does—"

Her words cut sharply with the loud crack of the musket. She couldn't even let out a cry of agony as the super-heated metal balls exploded from the muzzle of the weapon and blasted against her chest. She felt the impact of each and every one of the smaller pellets, followed by the hard impact of the single-larger ball that had been loaded with its smaller companions. She knew the moment that the larger ball pierced her heart to end her life … She felt her heart stop with the impact and counted off the seconds until her brain was starved of both blood and oxygen and ended her existence.

Her last thoughts should have been of the Doctor and of her love for him. She should have apologised for not being stronger; for being taken down and not able to get a warning to him. But it wasn't….

All she could think of was to question just why her fingertips were burning. Why did it feel as though her hands and neck were on fire. She could feeel her body being torn apart, alight with flames.

Was this what death truly felt like? Was she descending into hell, like her grandmother always warned that she would if she didn't stop with her sinful behaviours and start to live a more _righteous_ life?

…If the scream she heard from lungs that weren't hers was anything to go by, then Hell is exactly where she was headed.

If only the Doctor could pilot the TARDIS to hell, perhaps he could save her in the same way she'd saved him….


	4. Lies and Betrayal

A/N: Thankee for the great response on the last chapter! Makes me feel all smushy inside and want to keep writing ... swoon.

I opted to update this one because I only had a wee bit of time and figured this would be the easier of all of them to do a short little snippet... Oh, I was wrong. This got a little more out of hand than I had originally planned... That said, it was a plot on the run ... and I truly hope it makes sense ..

It makes sense in my head ... Dunno if I got it right when I typed it out, though.

Anyway ... I hope you enjoy this one!

~~oooOOOooo~~

What a perfectly magnificent evening it was: The twin moons hung high in the brilliant deep purple sky above his head like a pair of eyes watching his every move, and every gasp of thrill, as he trotted along a red-stoned road toward the Castle.

Every once in a while he'd hear a light whine from his Wroddosk that would result in the tempo of his hoof falls shifting into uncoordination. Such uncoordinated and staggered movements made the Doctor's ability to time his rise and falls in the saddle falter toward discomfort. All it took, however, was a light tap of his hand against the beast's broad and muscled neck, and the footfalls would settle toward a more comfortable rhythm.

They'd pulled their beasts from a hard gallop only a single mile earlier. The Doctor had a brief moment of confusion as to why they had slowed their beasts after having exploded in an urgent flurry of red dust and loud hollers. His confusion, however, morphed quickly into amusement when a member of his party had advised him that it was a far more impressive sight to the lasses waiting behind if they took off at a full gallop. Whatever speed they opted to ride once out of sight didn't matter … the final imagery of a determined rider in the minds of their fairest was all that mattered.

…The Doctor couldn't exactly argue with that mindset; there truly wasn't too much he held higher than making sure that he looked as impressive as possible to his precious pink and yellow human girl that waited for him back in the village. And he had to admit, that he looked pretty damn impressive seated high in his stirrups and dressed in the finery of a horseman. If Rose saw him as being brilliant and very impressive in a truly manly way, then there would be no complaints from his big and beautiful Time Lord mind.

…His chafing thighs on the other hand…

With a one-sided wince of concentration and slight irritation, he took one hand from the reins and lowered it to his crotch in an attempt to shift the seat of the seams of his trousers.

"We're almost there, Doctor," a low voice in a deep register called out from his left.

As his look quickly shifted from concentration to guilt at being caught making an "adjustment", the Doctor lifted his eyes to the smoky purple horizon ahead of them. His brows fell into a frown of puzzlement that he couldn't see the castle – which was their intended destination.

…At least that's what he'd been led to believe to this point.

"I thought we were headed toward the castle," he managed suspiciously without completely abandoning his task of shifting trouser seams to a more comfortable location. "We aren't near any structure that I would call a _castle_. That is, unless the Haprietograwan idea of a _castle_ is wide open paddocks lined with a bit of an unkempt shrubbery." He pursed his lips with distaste. "Not my ideal vision of a grand estate of a powerful Lord. Well. Then again, I'm a rather impressive Lord and I travel the universe in a blue box." He inhaled deeply and lifted his shoulders almost as high as his brows, then let them drop heavily. "Still. What's considered elegant and opulent on one planet isn't always considered grand on another…"

His words petered out somewhat as he was forced to pull his steed to a stop to avoid his fellow riders, who had herded themselves into a circle around him. He felt a shudder of warning ripple down along his spine and into his boots. Whether from the timelines possibly approaching a fixed point, or just from the looks and the rigid body language of the group of men surrounding him, it was enough to have him immediately on guard. His chin dropped so that he looked at the leader of the pack through his brows.

"Ewan, what's going on?" he questioned on a dark voice of warning. His mind couldn't stop wandering toward the village with warning that if he had ridden into an ambush, that Rose was likely hiding within one as well.

…He desperately hoped that she was protected.

He waited a moment for an answer. When he received nothing more than a handful of snickers and growls of derision, he asked the question again – only this time with far more authoritative warning in his tone.

Ewan broke from the circle and trotted his steed forward to stand nose-to-nose with the Doctor's animal, but he said nothing as his wroddosk stomped, snorted and shifted impatiently in place.

"Answer me," the Doctor demanded. "It's rather obvious that we aren't anywhere near a castle or any other habitable structure." He looked at the part of the circle to his front and then passed his gaze back to Ewan. "Judging by the glares of contempt that your friends are levelling in my direction, I'll hazard a guess that we aren't here to confirm our strategies against the castle."

"Perceptive, aren't you," Ewan answered with a filthy smirk as he pulled a short musket from a pouch behind his though on his saddle.

"Well," the Doctor sang in reply. He extended the end of the sound with his tongue pressed thoughtfully against the back of his teeth, but he quickly released his tongue and settled his glare back toward Ewan. "I'd be betraying my reputation of observant brilliance if I didn't notice that something was out of the ordinary when I find myself suddenly surrounded by gun-wielding highwaymen on a deserted roadway."

"Shame you couldn't recongise the danger before you took one of our wroddosks and left your ship – and therefore your own safety behind," Ewan countered with a hitch in his voice at the jagged movements of his impatient steed. "You didn't even take the musket, Doctor. Why would you leave yourself so wide open like that?"

The Doctor swallowed thickly. "Is Rose in danger?"

Ewan let up a laugh and shook his head. He looked upon the Doctor with an expression of utter contempt. "I just told you that you're away from anyone or anything that could possibly protect _you_. You're without a weapon of any sort, and yet you worry about the safety of the _woman_ …"

"Of course I'm concerned for her safety," the Doctor interrupted with a bark loud and sharp enough to startle his own beast into impatient stomping. "I'm no stranger to mischief, mayhem and peril. I can deal with all of you and be the only one to walk away from it. Rose, however. Rose isn't. Oh, my precious girl can certainly hold her own if she needs to…"

A laugh from all the men in the circle cut him off. The Doctor looked around the group with a tic in his eye and a curl in his lip at each and every one of them. Each of them seemed to hold the very same stature as the man next to him: Head thrown back, left arm across his belly to hold himself firm as he exploded with sanctimonious mirth. Each man held a weapon in his right hand; identical weapons, right down to the flaw in the gilding on the hilt

He lifted his eyes to Ewan, and then shifted his eyes toward the faces of the other men surrounding him. He couldn't make out much of their features in the lighting provided only by the twin moons, but he could definitely tell that each one of the pairs of eyes that regarded him so disdainfully were all as identical as the other.

"Who are you?" he seethed in question. "And is Rose safe?"

Ewan tipped his right shoulder up in a shrug. "Who are we? We are the obedient and loyal subjects of Lord George – ruler of Haprietograwa!" He lifted his musket in a gesture of victory and looked behind him to ensure that each of his men displayed the same loyal behaviour. They did, with grunts and snorts and cheers.

The Doctor looked on with a single brow curled high on his forehead. "I. See."

Ewan looked back at him and curled both lips to display his perfectly white rows of teeth in a smile. "And as for your _mate…_ "

"Her name is _Rose_ ," the Doctor ground out.

Ewan snorted. "Well. Then _Rose_ ," he forced out through his teeth with obvious distaste. "Let's just say that by now…" he looked up to the location of the moons with an analytical eye of assessment. "Well, by now she's learned for herself just what happens to filthy off worlders that think they can come to our planet and try to overthrow our leader…"

"If you or any of your _friends_ have so much as put a single hair out of place on her head…"

"Much more than a _single hair_ ," he chuckled out. He leaned his forearm over the horn of his saddle and leaned forward in a confident slouch. "I'd say that your precious mate has been well and truly educated on the ways of Haprietograwa, and how we treat those who dare threaten our Lord and ruler."

The Doctor pursed his lips and slowly nodded his head. His eyes were dark, but not flared and wild. His posture wasn't threatening, nor stiff with fury. Instead, he seemed relaxed and even thoughtful as he considered Ewan's words.

After a moment he took a breath – a deep one – and exhaled through a very very slight smile. His words, when they finally tumbled from his lips, were spoken airily through a smile. He even clapped his hands together and held them together; the fingers of his right hand curling around the palm of his left.

"Well. Then I suspect there is very little I can do about that, is there?"

Ewan's eyes flared with puzzlement. "Excuse me?"

"Well," he blustered out somewhat condescendingly. "If she's gone, she's gone, isn't she? Nothing much I can do about that." He chuckled out along a breath. "Clever and brilliant though I am, able to travel through all time and space and in some instances even control events to obey the sands of time." His eyes widened. "Oh! I like that: Sands of Time. Like sands through the hourglass, these are the Days… Oh," he shook his head. "No. Never mind. That's a Soap Opera from Earth." He tapped at his lip and petted his chest pocket in search of his sonic screwdriver. "You'd like Earth. Not much different from here, _really_. Well. Depending on what century you decide to land in of course. The Show.." his words slowed as he felt the glares of all the men darken with impatience.

"Yes. Well. Irrelevant, really," he ventured somewhat petulantly with a shrug in one shoulder, which allowed him to finally grasp at his sonic and juggle it in his hand. "Although TV dramas like those Earth soaps…" He blew out a breath and blew wide his eyes as though impressed. "I really don't know how any of those characters would make it without having to be heavily medicated day in and day out…" He dropped his chin, shook his head, and chuckled to himself.

"Oh course, that's because they're _fiction_ , right? Made up characters. Mindless really. No self-thought or free will at all." He lifted his eyes to lever a look toward Ewan. "They are figments of their creator's imagination, brought to life for no other reason at all than to be the puppet to a twisted mind."

He shifted in his saddle and leaned a forearm along the horn in front of him to slouch in as nonchalant a manner as Ewan had done earlier. "Sick and twisted minds _sometimes_ , he said with a smirk. "Oh, some authors and creators are genius and create characters meant to inspire, delight, and thrill the audience." He grinned. "Oh, but those characters have life, don't they? In the imaginations of others they can survive an eternity. Bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger that the whole universe itself."

He nodded with a very serious look upon his face. "Now they … _they_ are characters I want to read about, watch, spend my time with. When you are a genius creator who creates for everyone else and not just himself, well. Well, you become immortal – revered by all and never forgotten."

He let out an almost sorrowful breath. "And then there are those that have no creativity beyond their own selves. Oh, they create character upon character upon character. Armies of characters, in fact. Armies and cities and towns of characters." He frowned and lowered his eyes to the saddle. "I probably should have said town before city, but…" He lifted his eyes again and shrugged. "And while they have all these multitudes of characters – there isn't much that really separates them from another."

"They look alike. They act alike. They have all the same behaviours and attitudes: Smug, Sassy, condescending, self important, righteous… Bit like running a document through a copier over and over again. Ahh, you might get some slight variances here and there as the image degrades, but essentially it's all one and the same thing. A cardboard cutout. Each. One. The same."

He smiled widely. "A true genius can mould new and brilliant characters that are utterly unrecognisable from the rest…"

"Enough!" Ewan growled and lifted his musket. "You will cease this infernal prattling immediately."

The Doctor actually laughed. "No. I won't," he challenged. "But. But I'll tell you what I _will_ do."

"And what's that?" Ewan asked with a huff of boredom.

"Well," he sang. "I'll finish _this_ story once and for all."

Ewan tilted his head to one side in confusion, much like a curious dog. "What _story_ is that?"

The Doctor pursed his lips and swallowed before answering. He let his thumb and finger shift along the shaft of his screwdriver in a very purposeful manner.

"The story of the evil tyrant Lord George and his unending fight against alien invasions, of course," he muttered with a roll of his eyes. "Nothing but a twisted fairy tale from a maniacal man." He looked up at the moons above him. "Really," he remarked as he lifted his sonic and pointed it toward Ewan. "I have to give you credit where it's due. This really is a remarkable set up you have here. And I'd almost be happy to let you go on and continue this fanciful – and egoistic – tale of absolute domination and power…"

He depressed the button on his sonic. The blue light shone against the purple darkness and it's buzz rang out across the plains. There was a tick and a click, and then a whirring sound that sped up and up and up….

"But you made a fatal mistake," the Doctor said with a growl through a darkened and dangerous tone as he directed his wroddosk to stomp and turn in a tight circle in place at the centre of the ring. "You threatened someone I care about very, very deeply…."

Around him. One, by one, the heads of the riders began to shimmy and shudder. Their shoulders rocked backward and then forward, side to side. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, each one of them lifted up and high in their saddles with their heads held back and their mouths open in a silent cry toward the sky.

The Doctor looked toward the moons with a sneer. "…You shouldn't have done that."

With those final words, each of the riders who had led the Doctor to this point, exploded in succession – one-by-one – in a hail of screws and cogs, whirs and pops.

The Doctor didn't drop his arm, even as the shattered bodies tumbled from their saddles and collapsed noisily on the dirt roadway. He listened to the metal innards of the riders shatter and break apart, and the sloth and slide of the spreading pools of oil, grease, and hydraulic fluid around each man.

"Elaborate set up you have here. I _almost_ believed it for a moment, the tale of tyrannical rule of an all powerful man, and the pleading of his people for salvation," the Doctor called toward the moons. "Only for the saviours to be defeated by the all-powerful Lord George, ordained and protected by the Gods themselves." He curled his lips with disgust and shook his head. "But it's nothing but an elaborate lie. Just a clockwork production by a pathetic madman named _George_. That _is_ your name, right? George?"

A line of lightning cracked across the sky, splintering a tree at his side. The Wroddosk whinnied loudly with fear, and reared up to turn around. Another crack of lightning, and the large, powerful beast launched a high leap over a pile of clockwork machinery to head back toward the town.

The Doctor kicked both ankles into the beast's belly and urged it forward.

"Great idea, you big and beautiful creature!" he called out as he lifted his arm high and let the light of his sonic screwdriver light their way. "Take me back to town! Rose is back there, I have to make sure she's …"

Another bolt of hot, white, lightning crashed at his side. The Doctor slid in his saddle, but managed to stay on the back of his beast with a tightening of his ankles into its belly. The wroddosk whinnied in protest, but continued to run, clattering loudly along the stones and the gravel, and smoking up the road behind them.

In his mind he pleaded to the almighty Rassilon for Rose's safety. He prayed that his precious pink and yellow human was safe, and that the only pieces of this cruel and terrible tale were the men who had ridden with him. He prayed that Bess and Oein were true and trustworthy, and that they had Rose and his beloved TARDIS safely hidden away.

They had to be. They absolutely had to be. He would never forgive himself if…

Another violent flash of lightning struck the road in front of them. The wroddosk whined and whinnied in terror and reared up before falling backward onto its side. The Doctor was thrown from the saddle and was launched into a nearby bush. He felt his left shoulder separate from its socket with a blinding rip of pain and a loud pop with the impact to the bush's trunk, and let out a long and haunted cry of agony.

There was no time to feel sorry for himself, though. He knew that Rose was in danger, and he had to get to her. The time for fun and games, and taunting his enemy was over. He clutched at his arm and he struggled out of the scraggly brush and stepped out onto the road. He had a limp in his stride and winced with each movement, but he pushed himself on.

He limped and dragged himself along the road as fast as his aching feet would take him. He tried not to focus on the pain that shot up along his injured arm – an arm detached from its socket and utterly useless to him now. He wouldn't even be able to hold his sonic, wouldn't be able to carry Rose if she needed him to.

After a walk that seemed to him to span at least two miles. Two miles in which he was tortured with the incessant crashing of lightning onto the bushes and gravel surrounding him, he could finally see the village in the distance. There was light above the trees. He could hear the TARDIS' song in his head. He was close. So close.

"Not so fast, you filthy offworlder."

He stopped walking and slumped with defeat and annoyance for a moment. His head shifted from side to side and a slow shake of disbelief and frustration. His words were deep and low, and full of fury as he turned around to face whatever man had magically appeared behind him. "You have to be kidding…."

His eyes blew wide to see perfect and pristine replicas of all of the men he had felled only a short while ago. They each stood side on to him and held their muskets high, aimed only toward him.

"Well," the Doctor breathed out with annoyance. "This day's only getting worse, isn't it?"

Ewan – well, the replacement Ewan at any rate – gave him a toothy smile. "You shouldn't have come here, Time Lord."

The Doctor inhaled deeply and nodded. He knew where this was about to go, and he was going to take it with at least a small ounce of dignity – when he truly considered it, this was probably the best option. He really was useless to Rose in this condition, anyway.

He only hoped she'd accept the _next_ him a little quicker than she'd accepted _this_ him.

"Do you honestly think you can take down a Time Lord, Ewan _?_ " he challenged with a grin as he opened his arms to give them the best target possible. "Go ahead. Give it your very best shot."

"Oh," Ewan answered with a laugh. "I intend to." He looked over his shoulder at his men and then looked back toward the Doctor. His smile fell and his face morphed into an expression of utter disgust and loathing.

"Kill him."

He felt the hot piercing slice of a multitude of small metal fragments puncture at his chest, belly, arms and legs, but didn't cry out. Although the pain was greater than anything he'd ever experienced, the Time Lord stood tall against the barrage.

Either side of him, lightning sizzled and crashed.

The Doctor looked up into the sky and actually found himself laughing. "You call _that_ a _storm,_ George?" He smirked and wriggled his fingers as he felt the rush of Lindos that was initiating his regeneration. Hot, swirling energy pooled in his belly. He knew that the complete explosive regeneration was only moments away and looked up to the twin moons with a dark and dangerous smile. "Oh. I can do much, _much_ better than that."


	5. NuWho

A/N: Have to ninja post today ... ran out of time!

Thanks for your comments! Love them all!

Hope you enjoy this section... (30Aug17 - Deleted the last section of this chapter .. didnt' like it at all .. rewritten entirely in the next chapter)

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose emerged from the fire with a gulping gasp of breath and a stumble of her shoulder against the wall. For a moment, she let herself curl into a slouch as she battled to catch her breath and tried to calm her thundering heart. God, it was racing; pounding against her ribs with such violence that she thought for sure it was throwing itself left and right inside her chest trying to escape.

She punched her fist against her chest in a fool's attempt at calming it and then twisted herself in place so that she could press her back up against the wall. She braced herself in that position and tried to make sense of her surroundings and just how she'd managed to survive a point-blank shot of a musket to her chest.

Her chest.

She flattened her palm against the thin cotton fabric covering her bosom and winced to discover a sticky, sickly wetness against her skin. She winced before she dared look, and held her breath as she let her eyes fall upon her open hand. It was covered in a sticky orange-red substance. It may have been blood, but it didn't have the deep crimson hue that she would have expected to see. With a bite at the inside of her cheek, she dared pull out the top of her blouse.

Clean. Her skin was clean and unmarred from the gunshot.

She fell into a deeper slouch and let out a long breath of relief. Whatever the ammunition in the gun, it obviously wasn't powerful enough to penetrate human skin – which was a laugh. Human skin was pretty penetrable by most things … even a piece of paper could slice a pretty painful cut.

Alive and assured that she was in one piece, Rose finally let her attention fall to the situation at hand: She was taken captive by the soldiers of King – or was it _Lord_? – George. She and the Doctor had been betrayed by Bess and Oein…

She frowned.

She was held captive. Tied and bound at gunpoint by a group of men, who were laughing, leering, and pointing guns at her … but where were they now?

She chewed lightly on her tongue and took a look around the room. It was vastly different to how it was before her captor took a shot at her. Moments ago it was pristinely made and immaculately kept. Now it was a mess of metal, gears and oily sludge, torn and scorched clothing, and walls blackened with soot. There wasn't a single person to be seen, yet only moments ago this room held at least six people.

The only thing that made sense was that perhaps the Doctor had realized that they'd been betrayed and had returned as the Storm in all his glory to obliterate everyone and everything that stood to harm either her or the TARDIS…

…Well, that was wishful thinking and then some…

She found herself actually chuckling at the thought of the Doctor circling back to ride like a mad man with his sonic screwdriver brandished high over his head, hollering out a cry of attack as the dirt road smoked and spat up gravel behind him.

…and in those tight pants and all. A real Prince Charming.

She shook her head and bit at her cheek as she carefully pulled herself from the wall and approached the doorway of the bedroom. She stumbled as she took her first tentative steps and thrust her arm out to find stability with her hand against the wall. Another step and she staggered once more. She felt as though her gait was wrong, like her stride that she'd crafted and perfected over her twenty one years didn't match her legs and feet. She stopped a moment, figuring it was panic that was causing her to stumble, and then closed her eyes to concentrate.

When she closed her eyes to concentrate a full range of heightened senses seemed to come online: There was a metallic taste inside her mouth. It wasn't quite the flavour of iron as she would have expected, but it was a metallic tang none the less. It wasn't blood, she knew the taste of that well enough, but it was a flavour that seemed to be a warning all in itself: The after effects of something traumatic? Probably. She was terrified and confused after all, so it made sense. Her nose picked up a scent that was as tangy and metallic as the taste upon her tongue. It wasn't anything recognisable to her, but she knew it was a scent that was organic in nature. This wasn't the smell of dirt and trash and machinery, this was something else entirely.

There was a hiss. A hush. A song and then the sound of white noise inside her head. It swished and hissed and crackled much like a radio station that couldn't quite be located on an old turn-dial wireless radio. It wasn't a sound that was captured by her ears – no, she could hear the outward sounds of nature and the settling house – this was internal. It was a dream-state symphony inside her mind that simply couldn't completely clear itself into one distinct or discernible sound.

"Ahhhhh," she breathed to herself with an untrained and unsure self-diagnosis. "I must've hit my head pretty good."

It was a concussion; what else could it be? Staggered gait, cottony dry mouth, strange sounds in her mind and brilliant colours across her eyes, confusion and disorientation.

No mind on all that. An Aspirin or two from the TARDIS med-bay would sort all of that out well enough…

There was a sudden jolt down along her back at that consideration and a negative blaring inside her mind; both of which caused her to gasp and stumble.

"Okay, okay," she breathed hurriedly to herself. "No aspirin, apparently. How about a Panadol instead?"

She didn't expect an answer, but seemed to receive a more calm sense of white noise inside her head; white noise that she desperately hoped a good night sleep in her TARDIS bed would eliminate. It was very distracting and very annoying.

She absently scratched at the back of her head as she cautiously and carefully paced toward the door. Hoping not to startle or encounter anyone who might be armed, she curled quietly around the thick wooden doorframe and into the darkened hallway that led toward the stairs.

Empty.

Empty and very _very_ quiet.

Rose licked at her lip and then stuck the very tip of her tongue into the edge of her mouth as she stepped into the dark and shadowed hallway. She blew a silent and soundless whistle between her lips and paused to remove her shoes. This close to an undetected escape, and she didn't want to risk making any unnecessary sounds. Her boots, leather and wood, clicked, squeaked, and clunked with every step, so she had to lose them. She even removed her socks and then stepped as carefully as she could so as not to make the wooden floorboards creak under her weight.

One step at a time, she descended the stairs. There were no lights downstairs; nothing to show any life or movement inside the cottage. It felt as though she was alone, but she knew it was unlikely they'd left her alone. Any misstep and she would be captured once again. She bit at the very edge of her lips, squinted in the darkness to see through the dark, and prayed to any and all deities watching that she'd make it out and to the Doctor and his TARDIS without being discovered.

Her hand was light on the railing, but ready to flex if she needed to quickly push, and her feet were soft and weightless on the stairs. There were only a few short metres to cross and she'd be outside and free…

A brilliant flash of lightning lit up the sky, and the entire cottage. Brilliant white light flickered and sizzled through the air, the electricity crackling as it devoured all of the moisture around her. Another flash, and then another.

Rose took the last two steps in a single stride and paused with a shudder in her bones as she waited for the chest pounding crash of thunder that she knew had to be coming next. There was no planet shattering boom of any kind, but the lightning flickered and flashed outside once more.

Over her shoulder, she saw the silhouette of a person hunched over and glaring directly at her. The bright white light shadowed the face in such a way that it offered her an eerie and haunted expression of hatred and anger.

She let out a yelp of shock and fear and stumbled forward, almost colliding with the unnamed person. Her hands thrust out to shove him away from her, and he fell with a crash to the ground, his chest and head shattering into a smattering of metal chunks and gears that rolled across the floor at her feet.

There was no further time to waste, Rose decided quickly, and certainly no time to wonder just what the hell that was. She flicked her head side to side in search of anyone else and then launched toward the doorway. Her need for escape was such that she barely waited the flick the latch on the door before she shoved her shoulder against it to slam it open.

Although in an extreme rush to get to safety, she paused in the doorway to best assess which direction she needed to run. There was only one way to go: toward the TARDIS.

She turned toward the direction that would take her to the sentient time ship, and found herself shielding her eyes with her forearm against another flash of lightning off in the distance… Only this flash of light was different to all the others that had been violently flashing since she'd been captured. This wasn't white, it was a hot golden yellow, and it flashed a more sustained blast than any of the other forks of lightning, and appeared to be much, much more dangerous….

~~oooOOOooo~~

Oh how he hated regenerating.

This was his eleventh time at ripping apart and rewriting every single cell and atom in his body. Eleven times and still he was as terrified and hateful of it as he was when he first underwent the change of the Time Lords back … oh … back when he was only in his second century.

He'd like to admit that he was an old hat at it now and that he had full control over the change and the man he would become next, but that would be a lie. He wasn't Romanadvoratrelundar, who had obviously been awake during those lectures at the Academy that would give her total control over her own regenerations. Truth was he usually didn't particularly care about what he'd look like and who he would be come after the lindos had waned and a new man rose where the old man had fallen.

But. While he might not have had control on the rewritten script of who he would become, he certainly had control over just where he was going to funnel out those delightfully destructive regeneration energies…

…and those destructive forces were going to be aimed at each and every one of those murderous clockwork robots posing as loyal humanoid subjects to an evil ruling overlord.

When he felt the regeneration energy buiding up in his shoulder blades, he spread his arms outward; pointing them toward the small band of men in a semi-circle around him.

"You don't even get a warning," he growled through gritted teeth.

The energy within him finally burst forth, and with a cry to the purple sky above him, he erupted into hot amber flames.

And within only a moment, he hiccupped and the flames died down to nothing. He staggered in place and drew in his first deep gasp into a new set of lungs.

"Woah," he blew out on an exhausted breath. "That _never_ gets any easier."

Part of him wanted to take some time to check that he was still typically Gallifreyan in appearance – although he figured that was just par for the course unless he controlled it otherwise. He could certainly sense that this was the case. But to be sure he made a rather swift assessment of his current form. He had two legs, two arms, two hearts, two eyes, two of each of the most important parts of his body…

…And that's all that mattered, really. Any further analysis could wait until after he'd found Rose, after they were safely in the TARDIS, and after he'd flown them into the Vortex away from any of the perils on the ground.

His body still rippled with hot regeneration energy, and he knew it would make his run toward the village slow and cumbersome. He also wasn't used to moving inside this new body – who knew if he would be as lithe and sleek as a gazelle or as uncoordinated as a drunken giraffe?

Oh, this might take a while…

A whinny at his side, and the hard shuffle of a heavy beast quickly stole the Doctor's attention. He flicked his head to his left, and saw the long muzzle of his Wroddosk glistening in the twin moonlight. The animal was spooked, that was clear. It stomped impatiently into the ground, and in place, too scared to run.

The Doctor blew out a light hiss for calm and slowly raised his hand to the large beast.

"Shhh there," he ventured carefully. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The wroddosk continued to stamp and snort. It looked with terror from side to side, eager to run, but still too frightened to do so.

"Please don't fear me," the Doctor said with a smile. "I'm the least scary thing around here." He tilted his head to the side and finally touched the palm of his hand to the long nose of the beast. "And like you – but not like any of the other riders who left with me tonight - I'm very much alive."

He lifted his other hand and made a gentle cooing sound as he stepped a stride closer to the wroddosk and encouraged it to nuzzle against his chest. "I promise you that the last thing I would want to do is to harm a magnificent creature such as yourself."

He Wroddosk finally stepped forward with trust and allowed both man and beast to stand together, forehead against forehead. The Doctor whimpered just slightly when he heard the beast's voice in his mind and spoke of his confusion and terror, and of the eons of fighting and warfare.

The Doctor's eyes were closed and his forehead remained pressed against the Wroddosk's. "I promise you that I'll put a stop to this," he vowed gently. "I promise you."

He opened his eyes and found himself looking into the deep hazel pair of eyes of his steed. "But for me to do that, I need to ask you a favour."

He chuckled at the word _anything_ dancing across his mind in response.

"I'd be very careful of making that offer," the Doctor joked on a whisper. "But let me assure you that my request isn't too great." He inhaled and kept his voice a whisper. "Please. I need you to take me back to the village. Take me to Rose…"

 _Your mate_?

The Doctor's breath caught, and then held, as he considered that question. He blew it our long and slow and slowly rocked his head side to side without breaking contact with the Wroddosk.

"I am not so lucky," he admitted. "But that doesn't mean I don't hold her in the same regard as I would if she _was_ my mate." His voice cracked just slightly as his face contorted into a wince of pleading. "Please. Rose is everything I believe in; she keeps me fighting; makes me a survivor. You have to help me help her."

The Wroddosk broke their connection before a clear answer was given, and for a moment the Doctor slouched with remorse and defeat. The beast, however, stomped with encouragement for him to mount.

"Thank you," the Doctor cheered with a smile as he hooked his foot into a stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle. He petted the beast's thick neck and gave a light kick of his heels to spur the wroddosk into action. "Let's go find my Rose," he called out with a cheer and his fist held up victoriously in the air.

"Geronimo!"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose stumbled in her run toward the TARDIS. The lightning was no longer lighting her path, and she stumbled and tripped on a dirt road illuminated only by the twin moons above her head. She'd stumbled to her knees on more than one occasion, and although she had been running for what felt like an hour, she'd only managed to make it into the town centre. She had a long way to go before she met with the TARDIS parked in the woods.

The thundering of hooves on the gravel road ahead of her had Rose skidding to a stop. She was still in her bare feet, and although she was able to grit her teeth through the pain of the rocks digging into the tender soles of her feet, she was unable to suppress the yelp of pain that dragging them through the dirt caused.

Once again, she stumbled to her knees in the dirt. This time, however, she was slower to rise back to her feet as she had done every other time. She could hear that the beast was close, and knew that she would never be able to escape a man on horseback.

She lifted to her feet and slouched in defeat and she considered for just one moment waiting around for capture. That moment lasted for only a heartbeat, however, and very quickly she determined that she wasn't about to be captured again – not while the Doctor was still in danger at any rate.

With renewed purpose, Rose curled her toes to try and take out the pain and then launched herself back into a run toward the TARDIS.

All she could do was hope that the Doctor wasn't too far away.

"Doctor, where are you?"

~~oooOOOooo~~


	6. Oein

A/N: This is a major edit of my last chapter. I decided that I didn't like it ... so I obliterated the whole last bit of it and completely rewrote it.

I am much more happy with this version ... I truly hope that you are too.

~~oooOOOooo~~

There was something quite thrilling about being on the back of a beast that was travelling at it's fastest speed. He had spent quite a lot of time on horseback on earth, and on the back of the glederbeast back on Gallifrey when he was a youngster. He always felt so incredibly powerful; that no man or beast could touch him whenever he had his ride at full throttle.

Tonight was no different.

Tonight he was a newly regenerated man. A dashing hero riding with purpose, ready to burst into the frey to save his honoured damsel from whatever evil threatened her.

Whimsical though that sentiment was, he was most certainly dressed for the part. There was no reason he couldn't indulge in a little whimsical fantasy here and there. And so help any man or _puppet_ that was threatening his fair Rose this eve. He would slay them all. Each and every one of them…

He inhaled deep to call out _Geronimo_ once more, and found the words get captured inside his throat at the heady scent that drew inside his lungs.

His head dropped and a frown creased his features as he analysed the scent to attempt to confirm, and then maybe make sense of just what it was.

 _Lindos_.

He shook his head.

 _No_. _It couldn't be._

He sniffed at himself much like a man in a gymnasium might smell his armpits in search of body odor. He picked up his own scent of the Lindos hormone. He knew he was still rippling with it, he would be for at least the next fifteen hours. Until his regeneration was complete, that scent was going to surround him like an invisible shield.

But this scent didn't belong to him. It was … well it smelled _younger_ than the Lindos he produced. It degraded and changed with age and regenerations. His was waning in strength and odor, this particular release, well… well it was far more crisp and pungent. This was the scent of a Time Lord exiting what was very likely a first regeneration.

But that was impossible! All of the Time Lords were gone. He was the last. How was there another regenerating Lord of Time, when there were none left to roam?

His beast suddenly whinnied with fear and jerked hard off to one side. The Doctor, distracted by his thoughts, wasn't able to react well enough in time to stay in the saddle. With an undignified yelp, he tumbled off the back of the beast and onto his ass in the gravel.

The Wroddosk took off down the road, leaving him in an undignified heap in the bush.

"Oh," he muttered with his palm covering his forehead in disbelief. "Well, that didn't exactly go to plan now, did it?"

He half expected to hear Rose give him an amused chiding about his lack of grace and the fact that his plan wasn't coming together, followed by a grin and an American purr about loving plans that did come together, but he received no such comments.

Rassilon's robes he was worried about her.

He was also concerned about the possibility of another Time Lord being alive, and while he most certainly hoped that it wasn't the case, he was wondering if this planet and its clockwork inhabitants were a rogue Time Lord's doing?

Nah. Far too elaborate for one of them to pull off…

He pursed his lips and hauled himself to his feet. He brushed off his thighs and shook his head with worry as he launched into a run.

He could count on one hand a very specific number of Time Lords and Ladies that were just insane enough to want to pull a stunt like this. It might explain how his TARDIS ended up here in the first place.

Rani. The Master. The Meddling Monk. Even Borusa might have the want to pull off something so bizarre, given his insanity toward the end of the war...

He weaved himself around a large boulder in the road and kept his mind running as fast as his legs were.

He'd witnessed their deaths, though. Well. Not _witnessed_ per se, but he had heard about each of their demises in the reports out of the Citadel during the time War. There was a slight possibility that one of them may have escaped and that reports of their deaths were misreported…

…Unlikely, however.

He continued to run hard along the road, and found himself struggling to do so after having just completed a regeneration. Typically his regenerations had come at the end of a _battle_ , and he'd be afforded some time to let his new body take hold and sleep off any regeneration sickness in the safety of his TARDIS _._ This time, however, he was still arse-deep in danger and mayhem, and Rose was missing and considered captured and in peril. That meant that despite being a Time Lord, time was a luxury not available to him. He would just have to let this new body hit the floor at a run and hope and pray to Rassilon above that he wouldn't succumb to any of the maladies and sluggishness that would typically affect a new regeneration.

Keeping his balance as he bolted toward the city was a good start. One thing that became apparent very quickly was that he would need to run with his arms flailing about if he hoped not to stumble and fall to the ground. A different running speed and an unfamiliar gait meant that stopping was going to be a trial of sorts. Should he skip, hop, and stumble to a stop, or would he have to skid his shoes in the gravel and let friction slow him down?

That question had an additional scenario added in, when he found himself at a fast approach toward a woman who also appeared to be on a determined run … heading straight toward him … on a rather thin road .. surrounded by thick brush that would make him have to run a steeple chase over hedges in order not to hit her.

… He wasn't sure that he had that kind of coordination this time around.

With a holler of apology, the Doctor curled his arms around the waist of the woman and spun them all in place to switch their positions so that they could continue along their respective ways.

Before he had a chance to set her feet on the ground, however, the intoxicating aroma of high-quality and potent Lindos energy danced into his nostrils. He drew in a long breath of and let it hold before he exhaled with a moan.

The woman inside his arms wriggled and growled to be let down.

With her struggle, and his refusal to let her down, the Doctor looked closer at the woman in his hold. He couldn't help but gasp at her beauty. Her hair was as black as a raven's wing and as smooth as the stillest waters. Her eyes were a magnificent hazel green that seemed to swirl with the very essence of the universe itself. She was taller than the average humanoid woman that he'd encountered before. Her face was pale, and dusted lightly with freckles. She had rich and naturally ruby lips and eyes lined dark with thick lashes and an adorable button nose. Her scent of time swirled around him like a cloak and wrapped around his hearts.

… the Doctor was immediately enamoured by her.

Her hands beat against his chest and her legs kicked against his shins, but he felt no pain from them at all.

"You," he breathed out long on a reverent breath. "You are magnificent."

The woman finally shoved herself out of his hold and stumbled backward with a pant and a gasp. She was slightly hunched and pointed a finger of accusation at him.

"What'dya think you're doin'?" she asked angrily as she struggled to steady her breath.

"I'm sorry," he pleaded, both hands held ahead of him in surrender. "It was either scoop you up into my arms, or ... " he stopped with a frown. "Was it a scoop, or was it a wrap and spin action?"

"It was a touch and feel is what it was," she corrected him sharply. "And I don't much appreciate you manhandling me like that."

He rolled his eyes and huffed lightly. "It was either I manhandle you," he amended. "Or I barrel straight through you. Which would you prefer?"

She pointed off toward the bushes at the side of the road. "You're tall and lanky enough, go over them and –" She stopped sharply at his grunt of annoyance. Her eyes narrowed. "You know what? I don't have time for this. I need to find my friend before he gets himself …" She swallowed in lieu of actually speaking the word that ended that sentence. She didn't want to say it.

The Doctor inhaled a deep sniff through his nose and offered her a nod of agreement. "Quite right. I have a friend of mine in peril as well."

"Girlfriend?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he admitted with a croak in his voice. He quickly cleared his throat and thumbed at his nose. "That is to say a girl who is a friend. A good friend. A very special friend in fact." He looked back over his shoulder. "I should really get to her."

"I'm sorry," she breathed with empathy. "I hope you find her."

"And yours," he queried curiously. "A _boyfriend_?"

"You mean a _friend_ who is a _boy_?" she said with sadness. "Yeah. Yeah. Something like that."

She thumbed back over her shoulder. "Well. I should be off, you know." She smiled weakly. "He's useless without me."

The Doctor nodded. "Much as I'm useless without my friend."

"Men usually are," she offered with a small smile. She looked to one side, and then to the other, and then looked back at him with a smile that split across her face. "Well. Gotto go. Good luck."

"Yes," he muttered to himself as he watched her spin and launch into a run away from him. "Good luck to you, my lady."

He watched her until she had disappeared deep into the darkness and then turned on his heel to run back toward the village. He could not afford to let his mind trail to the possibility that he was no longer alone in the universe; that somewhere, out there, some of his people still roamed.

The cottage where he'd left Rose appeared faster than he'd expected it to. And it was dark. So very dark. And quiet. Unnervingly so. The stillness of the cottage, and the darkness within terrified him. He didn't slow as he came to the front door, instead he put on an extra burst of speed and threw himself through the door like a madman. There was no pause at the doorway or at the base of the stairs to assess any perils that stood between he and Rose Tyler. He climbed the stairs, two steps at a time, as he hollered out desperately for Rose.

He saw no movement; nothing; as he burst up the top step into the open foyer between the bedrooms and the bathroom. Both hearts hammered desperately inside his chest and terror settled on his shoulders as he inhaled deeply to capture the scents of the cottage to assess just what may lie behind every door.

He had a feeling that whatever lay on the other side was an image that he would have to prepare himself wholly for. No movement at all was an eerie and morbid sign.

He inhaled deeply and catalogued each and every one of the scents around him. The metallic twang of greased gears and spilt hydrolic fluid was the least of the pungent smells, and was most definitely a more encouraging scent. If Rose had managed to somehow destroy the puppets, then perhaps she was able to escape…

…and he'd expect no less of her, his magnificent pink and yellow human girl.

He had to smile at the thought of her kicking some robot butt and scarpering back to the TARDIS. Oh what a sight that would be to behold.

…he desperately hoped that was the case and that Rose was nestled safely inside his TARDIS.

He looked to his left and to a room where the door was only slightly ajar. There was a slight whirring sound coming from within. With caution born of so many centuries of danger, the Doctor warily approached the room. He help his chin low and looked past his brows as he pressed his temple to the wall and let both his sense of smell and his ears tell him what danger was lurking beyond the door.

…The smell that assaulted his senses; the crisp and tangy metal scent of Lindos energy; drew something primal within him.

Inside that room, something had assaulted one of the last remaining members of his people enough that she was forced to regenerate. And if they'd tried to kill a Time Lady, then the odds were that his precious Rose had succumbed to the same.

And whomever it was that harmed her, was going to pay dearly for it.

With a deep and booming roar, the doctor slammed his shoulder against the lilting wooden door and forced his way inside. His boots stepped hard onto metal fragments and slid inside blackened oil. Darkness still hung over him like a heavy curtain drape, and so he snatched his sonic screw driver from his pocket and let it light up with a buzz to scan the room.

IF there was any doubt that a full and violent regeneration had occurred in this room, then the state of it very much eliminated it. The scorch marks and burn patterns, more ash grey than black and still lightly glowing with amber energy, as well as the perfect silhouette of e female form, as a void space amongst the charring, left little doubt that his mysterious Time Lady had met her previous incarnation's demise in this very space.

He blinked sadly in sympathy for whatever torture led to her regeneration, and then panned his light slowly across the carpet in hopes that he might find a sign of the woman he'd destroy planets to protect.

"Where are you, rose?" he breathed hopelessly to himself. Lump after lump of torn and charred fabrics, surrounded him. He searched throughout the mess to see if he could see the colours of her dress in the blue light of his sonic, and the more stillness he saw, the more the hope within his chest began to wane.

The Time Lady had survived whatever happened in here, but it didn't appear that Rose had been so fortunate. How could he expect that she had? If the torture had been enough to take down a lady of time, there was no way that Rose's inferior biology could withstand it.

HE couldn't fight the tear that rolled down his cheek as his hearts shattered inside his chest.

"Oh, Rose," he breathed to himself. "I'm so sorry."

There was a whirring sound behind him, and the Doctor immediately spun in place to address whomever had encroached into his space. He held his sonic screwdriver with an outstretched arm into the broken and warped face of Oein.

"Doctor…" the voice crackled and popped through an unmoving mouth.

"What have you done with Rose," the Doctor growled darkly in reply. "And you'd better tell me she's alive, or else I'll rip you gear from gear." He took a breath. "And then, when I'm done with you, I'm going to return to my TARDIS and make sure that this entire planet is completely and irrevocably obliterated."

Oein cracked a static reply that was indecipherable.

"In fact," the Doctor continued with a darker and more dangerous tone. "I'll do better than simply obliterate you. I have the power to make sure you, and whatever created you never existed I the first place. I'm a Time Lord; from a peoples who can control and wield time like a weapon."

His head swam a little through the air, much like a snake issuing a threat to a predator. "Don't you think for a second that I won't wield that power." He moved in close, nose against nose. "Now tell me. Where is she?"

The broken static voice of Oein rattled out her name, but stumbled over trying to offer anything further.

The Doctor growled hotly through an open mouth, spraying spittle against the puppet's face. He lifted his sonic and dug it into Oein's temple and pressed hard against the trigger. Blue light and a piecing whistle of sonic waves echoed throughout the room.

"Tell me!" the Doctor bellowed in demand as Oein stumbled to a knee. HE kept that sonic screwdriver buried deep and hard against the man's temple. "What happened to Rose?"

Oein's eyes lit up with the same brilliant blue as the sonic and the static smoothed out to return to the same smooth voice of the elderly man the Doctor had met only a few hours earlier.

"Light," he answered the Doctor cryptically. "The Rose burst into a flaming tree of yellow light."

The Doctor frowned in puzzlement. "She did what?"

"They shot her, Doctor, as they always do to the girl," Oein admitted with defeat. "Very few ever survive when they come through here, least of all the women." His lighted blue eyes looked up intot he Doctor's face. "Rose lasted longer than the others. Oh, but she had spirit that child. Spirit and bravery like none I've ever seen."

The Doctor sneered. He leaned further over Oein and dug his sonic harder into the puppet's skull. "And so what; you thought to destroy a spirit like that? For what reason?"

"For treason," he answered simply. "Against our Lord."

The Doctor's voice softened. "You killed her?"

"Not me," Oein answered soothly. "I merely trap them. Branson, however. He is the leader of the execution squad, and he is the one who pulls the trigger."

The Doctor let out a staggered breath of utter and absolute heartbreak. He inhaled a shaking breath through his nose and tried to firm himself up. HE held onto his anger. "And where can I find this .. this _Branson_?"

Oein looked over the Doctor's shoulder toward a shattered mass of wires, cogs and oil. "That's where you'll find him."

The Doctor looked at the pile and then back to Oein. The pressure of the sonic against his temple was lessened, but the Doctor didn't take it away completely. "Who destroyed him?"

Oein chuckled. "Rose did."

The Doctor's eyes shot wide. "Excuse me?"

"Branson took to her with a musket," Oein said without emotion. "Held the musket to her breast and pulled the trigger to end her life." He paused and looked back up to the Doctor's face. "But your Rose wouldn't be taken so easily."

Fear washed over the Doctor. "What happened?"

"An explosion of light and fire," Oein stated with awe. "The spirit within her burst free when the bullets pierced her chest. Bright lights and hot fire burst from her neck and her hands, dripping from her fingertips like melting wax from a candle." He smiled as best he could through a warped mouth. "Magnificent to behold, if one dared to do so, Doctor."

The Doctor gulped. "No…"

"Oh, but one can't watch the holy spirit, can they? Anyone who dared look upon her was incinerated by her fire, and one by one they fell." He groaned. "Some tried to fight, credit where credit is due, I suppose, but you can't fight the hands of Gods. They shattered and fell."

The Doctor's voice fell to a whisper as his mind worked back to the woman he'd seen running barefoot and frightened on the road.

"Tell me what happened to her."

"Your Rose is gone," Oein answered in a voice slowly waning and slowing out. "Gone and replaced by another."

"What do you mean?" Oh, he didn't need to ask that. The Doctor had a fair idea that he knew exactly what it meant …

…How it was possible, however … that was another thing entirely.

"Rose perished in the flames, Doctor," Oein replied with static now returning to his voice. "And in her place a new Rose Tyler emerged. Raven hair, ivory skin…."

"Hazel eyes that swirl with the universe itself," the Doctor finished. His breath flew into him with a gasp. ''By the rule of Rassilon, the Time Lady … _Rose_?"

How?

"He'll kill her again, our Lord," Oein warned, barely understandable through static. "You'd best go to her."

The Doctor stopped his Sonic and let it hang at his side as he quickly straightened to his full height. His mind cried out to him to do exactly as Oein had told him to do, but he found himself somewhat unable to make any of his muscles obey any of his mind's commands to run to the TARDIS and make sure Rose was …

… was a Time Lady?

No. No. That was impossible. Completely and utterly and quite properly impossible…

…But then again, so was Rose.

HE didn't know if he should let himself hope as much as he was right now; but he wasn't going to abandon that hope altogether. He said nothing further to the broken puppet on the floor, and he paid no mind to anything else around him as he turned and fled the room.

He took the full staircase in only two lanky strides and then bounded out of the front door to take to the street like a mad man. If Oein was right, and his Human Rose was now a Gallifreyan Akrytior, then he needed to get to her as quickly as possible…

…hopefully before she found a mirror.


	7. A New Sexy

A/N: Phew have I been busy lately!

I haven't had any time to get to anything lately! I found a couple of hours today and figured I'd have a go at another chapter of this fic. It's about time I cleaned up and finished my seemingly abandoned WIP's ... trust me, they aren't abandoned. I'll add to each and every one of them until they're finished.

I do hope you like this chapter... The next chapter is already started, and it's going to be ... uhm ... interesting...

Please enjoy!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Oh blimey her feet hurt.

She didn't know for just how long exactly she'd been running – well, actually she could – it had been approximately ten minutes, fifteen minutes and three seconds. Of course, the Doctor hadn't parked the TARDIS far away from the cottage, and despite the urgency to run directly toward her, Rose Tyler had taken an alternate route toward the mighty time ship.

She didn't quite know why. Something within her mind had warned her not to take the most direct route. If that was because of danger along the direct path, or because the ship herself wasn't so eager to see her, Rose wasn't sure, but she wasn't going to ignore that niggling sensation inside her mind to duck and weave along a more scenic route.

One thing was certain, though, she was looking forward to stepping her cut and grazed bare feet onto the TARDIS threshold and then rushing into the infirmary for a fast bit of dermal regeneration … and then a long and hot soak in the bath.

Ahead in the darkness, Rose heard the thundering footfalls of a large beast. She barely skidded to a halt on the road before the beast cried out in the night and there was a loud thump and the rustle of bushes. Whatever had been riding atop the beast had obviously fallen, and she had to chuckle to herself at the loud departure of the animal and the holler of its rider lamenting its escape.

Good. If there was a would-be attacker on his way toward her, at least he didn't have the speed of a wroddosk to aid in her capture….

…now to hope that this individual had lost his weapon in the fall as well.

Onward and forward, her mind decided sharply. She leaned forward in her run to pick up speed, and tried to ignore the sounds of someone scrabbling on the dusty road ahead of her.

She was surprised by the clarity of her sight as she ran deeper into the darkness. Shadows and figures ahead of her that would normally give her an array of terrifying pareidolian images seemed to appear with much more clarity than ever before. The brilliant flashes of hot lightning, that lit up the landscape with much more luminosity than even the sun itself, merely confirmed that every swaying and stationary image in her mind, truly was as she saw it. Gnarled and broken trees were simply aged and weather beaten trees, not moaning zombies or werewolves coming to get her. Bushes were leafy shrubs, not trolls or hunched monsters ready to gnaw off her kneecaps.

…Of course she wasn't on a very familiar planet, so they all could very well be something vicious…

Her musing levied much of her attention, and she didn't' see the long and lanky body of a humanoid giraffe hurtle out of the darkness and into the road directly ahead of her. Rose inhaled sharply in surprise that ended up caught inside her throat as the intruder curled both arms around her waist and spun them both 180 degrees to put them clearly onto their intended paths.

She wasn't sure if he mumbled any form of apology or even an "I gotcha!" in the span of microseconds that existed between him picking her up, spinning her around, and then setting her feet back onto the dusty road. She had no intention of asking him if he did. All she could think of was to escape his clutches, leap back onto the road, and return to the TARDIS to wait for the Doctor to return.

She wriggled and writhed for freedom in his hold with only a grunt of annoyance as her demand to be let go. She would have said more, but she froze when her captor shifted his nose in close, closed his eyes, and then inhaled a deep breath. Her eyes widened with disgust as he held her scent inside his lungs and then exhaled with a moan.

Her wriggling and writhing returned in earnest.

Oh, but he refused to release her. His arms tightened around her back and his expression filled with a soft and reverent awe, despite the litany of unfeminine sounds that were grunting and growling from between her lips. Her hands thumped hard against his chest, and her legs kicked to find freedom, and yet he didn't move an inch under her onslaught. If anything, he only held her closer.

"You," he breathed out with a longing breath. "You are magnificent."

She froze for a very brief moment at the infatuated glint in his eye and the aching expression of complete adoration in his youthful facade.

Rose felt that this was no time for questioning or contemplating such an expression, and so she resorted to shoving her hands against his chest to push herself to freedom. He finally relented his hold, and she stumbled backward from him back onto raw and torn feet. She slouched to let the pain of her cuts shoot through her teeth in a hiss and pointed a sharp finger of accusation toward him.

"What'dya think you're doin'?" she asked angrily as she struggled to steady her breath.

"I'm sorry," he pleaded, both hands held ahead of him in surrender. "It was either scoop you up into my arms, or ... " he stopped with a frown. "Was it a scoop, or was it a wrap and spin action?"

Rose noticed that his voice was not as broken with exhaustion as it should have been from running. She narrowed both of his eyes and tipped her head to one side to look at him warily. "It was a touch and feel is what it was," she corrected him sharply. "And I don't much appreciate you manhandling me like that."

He rolled his eyes and huffed lightly. "It was either I manhandle you," he amended with a huff in his voice. "Or I barrel straight through you. Which would you prefer?"

Rose pointed off toward the bushes at the side of the road. The solution was easy enough if he had a brain in his head and a chivalrous bone in his body. "You're tall and lanky enough, go over them and –" She stopped sharply when he expelled a grunt of annoyance. Her eyes narrowed in response. "You know what? I don't have time for this. I need to find my friend before he gets himself …" She swallowed in lieu of actually speaking the word that ended that sentence. She didn't want to say it. Oh, no she didn't want to say it.

The man inhaled a deep sniff through his nose and offered her a nod that Rose interpreted as one of agreement. "Quite right," he answered smoothly and with renewed vigour in his tone. "I have a friend of mine in peril as well."

Her eyes widened at that, and she took a closer look at him. Although it was dark with night, she could see the hold of his stance and the worry lines at his eyes. This poor fellow was clearly distressed, despite finding a moment to flirt with her … if she could so call it that.

She softly probed with a question she thought apt at that moment: "Girlfriend?"

His face fell. "Yes," he admitted with a croak in his voice. He quickly cleared his throat and thumbed at his nose in a gesture of faux nonchalance as he tried to overcorrect that answer. "That is to say a girl who is a friend. A good friend. A very special friend in fact." He looked back over his shoulder. "I should really get to her."

Rose understood what must be running through his entire body at that moment. Panic and worry weren't in any way a good combination of feelings. "I'm sorry," she breathed with empathy. "I hope you find her."

"And yours," he queried curiously. "A _boyfriend_?"

The question was asked in a way that seemed to plead for her to answer negative to that. She tipped her head to one side with curiosity and a pinch in her brow as she answered in a mirror and the one he'd given her. "You mean a _friend_ who is a _boy_?" she said with sadness. "Yeah. Yeah. Something like that."

 _Never anything more at any rate._

She felt movement in the air between them, a movement that suggested to her that he was ready to take a step toward her and take her into his arms once more. Despite wanting a little bit of comfort right now, and halfway willing to accept a cuddle from a stranger, she backed away a full step. The Doctor would probably be worried about her by now, and she needed to return to the TARDIS.

She could get her hug from her Doctor the second he returned …. Right after she scolded him and let him know how very mad she was at him for running off and leaving her alone to fend for herself in a house of traitors and filthy scumbags.

She offered him a smile as she thumbed back over her shoulder. "Well. I should be off, you know." She smiled weakly. "He's useless without me."

The man smiled knowingly and donned a slow movement of his head. There was a hint of sadness in his voice. "Much as I'm useless without my friend."

"Men usually are," she shot back with a small smile. She looked to one side, and then to the other, and then looked back at him with a smile that split across her face. She hoped a big grin could lift his spirits; her mother did always say that she had a smile that would light the darkest heart…

…Jackie was very drunk at that precise time, but Rose had never forgotten it.

Her smile widened and she waggled her fingers in a wave. "Well. Gotto go. Good luck."

She spun away when she heard him mutter an affirmative under her breath. She took off running when she heard him with her luck and called her a lady.

She giggled at that. If only he knew her better, he'd never throw that title at her.

Any giggles quickly dissipated as she dove headlong back into the darkness ahead. She could sense the TARDIS' location in the distance – although just quite _how_ she couldn't state for certain – and she knew that in no time at all, she'd be in the safety of the ship.

She felt a rumble on the floor beneath her feet, and then a thumping gasp from up ahead. Rose lifted her head and winced to see better in the darkness ahead, and found herself suddenly rattled from her gait with the impact of an invisible force. The force held like a field, and Rose pushed forward with difficulty, moving as though her entire body was caught in honey.

"What the hell?" she breathed out worriedly. "What's goin" - ?"

Her sentence cut painfully as a cacophony of sounds filled her mind and sucked out her breath. Rose staggered and then stumbled as she lifted her hands up her head to clutch handfuls of her hair and cover at her ears.

"What is this?" She ground out through her teeth even as she pushed forward. She had to get to the TARDIS, and she had to do it _quickly._ Whatever was going on around them was only getting worse. IF the Doctor was in trouble and needed her help, then she simply _had_ to make sure that she was in far better physical condition, with better running clothes … and shoes … to go rescue her Doctor!

A bright light ahead of her drew Rose's attention away from the desperate cries and pain she was feeling inside her head. Still clutching at her ears and still in a hunch, Rose carefully lifted her head to look toward the light.

The sight ahead of her drew her breath deeply into her lungs and held it firm.

The TARDIS stood in her place at the edge of the small forest. She was unheard and silent, but was by no means still and subdued.

In fact it was quite the opposite.

The blue police box shook and shimmered in her place. Her materialisation warped and shifted, changing in hue and opacity. Her windows blared lights that Rose could swear bellowed out like sirens, bright flashes of yellow and white that tore across the grasses and the gravel like blades. Her single little light upon her room flickered and flashed violently and spun like the beam of a lighthouse, round and around, slitting the air with a sizzling slash of light.

It was as though the sentient ship was in pain, and Rose fell to her knees on the dirt, swearing to the heavens that she could feel that pain as vividly as the beloved ship.

Rose cried out to the ship as she struggled to get to her feet. The soupy air made her movements difficult, but she managed to haul herself to a stand and took a pair of strides closer to the TARDIS.

"What's wrong?" she hollered out with pain lancing her voice. "TARDIS? Tell me! Tell me what's wrong?"

She pushed herself forward and held out her hands ahead of her to reach out and touch the shimmering blue wooden doors. "How can I help you?" she implored desperately.

She wriggled her fingers urgently as she drew yet closer. "Let me help you," she pleaded softly. "Please, TARDIS, let me help."

As her fingers drew to less than an inch away from the ship, the TARDIS let out a loud screeching whine. The lights drew to a fever pitch, and then exploded from the windows of the ship with a force of energy that knocked Rose Tyler onto her ass on the sharp gravel road.

The TARDIS then let out a series of exhausted-sounding whines and groans that eked out and slowed to have her voice whining and wheezing in a manner much more typical to her. The lights died down, as did her shimmering shape, until she stood as a silent sentinel looming over Rose, who still sat heavily in the dirt only a metre or so away.

Rose cautiously rose to her feet and padded warily toward the now silent time ship. She licked at her lip and tipped her head unsurely to one side.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly as she carefully approached. "Am I okay to come to you now?"

The TARDIS huffed a pained wheeze as though nodding, and Rose stepped forward. Immediately she took notice of the TARDIS' new deeper blue tones. She paused at the sight of a St. John's Ambulance decal and smiled as she drew her finger along its perimeter. "Well," she sang lightly. "That's a bit new?"

She looked up to the windows and took her hand from the door to pull her key from between her breasts. The right-side door flew open with a bang, expelling a gust of white smoke. Rose Waved the smoke from her face and deliberately held back from coughing as it cleared. She winced in sympathy.

"I suppose you're as worried about the Doctor as I am, yeah?" She waited a second and then petted the doorframe like a supportive pat. "You and me though," she assured the ship firmly. "We'll find him, right? The TARDIS and Rose Tyler, protecting our Doctor, like it should be, yeah?"

There was an amused hum inside her mind, and Rose gave the Police Sign a wink. "First things first, dear," she cooed as she stepped across the threshold and into the ship. "My feet hurt so much. Do you mind scanning for the Doctor while I get my feet …." Rose's breath drew in as a gasp and she held that breath as she took a look around the console room.

"Oh my God," she breathed out worriedly. "What happened?"

What had happened indeed. Gone were the orange coral struts that welcomed Rose and the Doctor every time the entered the console room. Gone was the grated flooring and the cobbled-together mushroom centre console.

She was still lit with a bright orange, the TARDIS. Her walls – now cavernous - still had roundels in a uniform pattern on her walls – although now they were wide and deep and looked to be able to house all manner of trinkets and tinkering projects abandoned by the Doctor when something more interesting had captured his attention.

Grated metal floor was now polished glass and the Gallifreyan equivalent of steel. The console was larger and more well put together, and her rotor column, still lighted green, seemed to rise endlessly into the ceiling. Rose felt for sure that if she could look up along the glassy column that the rotor cylinder would rise for an eternity into the heavens.

Oh, but she looked magnificent, and Rose couldn't help but remark on that with a reverent sigh in her voice.

"You're beautiful," she said with awe. "Absolutely beautiful."

"And so are you…"

Rose stilled at the male voice she heard behind her. It was vaguely familiar, she deduced quickly, and very likely belonged to the man she'd met on the street moments ago. She was hesitant to turn, although she knew she had to. Having your back to an unknown enemy was more dangerous than facing them head-on, and so she took a deep breath for courage before spinning her cut and bleeding feet on the crystal clear glass floor of the TARDIS.

"Who are you?" She asked dangerously as she finally spun to face him. "I'm warning you," she growled. "If you take another step, then…"

"Then what?" he asked quietly. "If I step forward, what will you do?" He hadn't moved from the doorway of the TARDIS. His hands still clutched the doorframe wither side of him, and only his chest had breached the console room itself. His eyes fell to Rose's chest and he seemed to crumple inside his stand. "Oh, Rose…"

Her eyes widened with horrific speed at the sound of her name leaving his lips. She stalked a stride forward, and then took a step backward. She clutched onto the edge of the console and readied herself to run up the nearest set of stairs…

Wait? Stairs?

He remained in the doorway, with his eyes locked on the gaping reddened hole of her dress. A fearful, remorseful tear rolled down his cheek as he lifted his gaze to hers. "What did they do to you?"

"Who are you?" she demanded. "How do you know my name?"

He suddenly flexed his arms to push himself off the doorway and made a swift approach. He stumbled slightly in his gait as he moved up the ramp, and his arms flailed awkwardly as he struggled to maintain a dignified balance. "I didn't know, Rose. I shouldn't have left you there. I'm so sorry"

Rose stepped backward, and managed to catch herself on the railing. She held on tight and desperately denied the recognition that flew through her mind. She shook her head and inhaled a gulping sob as he drew closer to her. In the light she could see the colour of blood staining the front of his shirt and those doe-skinned pants that had fit him so snuggly. "No. No, please. Tell me you didn't…" Her eyes filled with tears as she lifted her hands to her mouth and shook her head. "You can't be … no … who … who are you?"

The Doctor stepped forward and then stopped suddenly exactly four feet away from her. He swallowed thickly and closed his eyes to let her presence wash over him, basking in the feeling for a moment before he could find the will to answer. All he could vocalise was a soft call of her name.

The air and time itself sifted to the front of him, and he knew without opening his eyes that she was cautiously stepping toward him. It was at her repeated request for him to confirm his identity that he finally opened his eyes once more. When he did, he was met with the most magnificent hazel-green eyes framed with thick jet-black lashes that were long enough to waver in the gentle swish of air that blinking created. He could see the swirl of time's vortex even through the black centre of those perfect hazel irises that held all of her frightened and confused questions.

"It's me," he pleaded with quiet urging for her to see him. "The Doctor. _Your_ Doctor."

She shook her head and sniffed wetly. "No. Please no."

"I regenerated," he said with a swallow that suppressed the words: _Just like you did._

Rose's face collapsed into sorrow as her tears escaped her lashes. She shook her head and whimpered. "But you can't," she pleaded. "You just can't. I – I don't believe you."

"Oh not again," he said with a whispered as his eyes lifted to the ceiling of the TARDIS. He let his eyes fall again to hers and smiled weakly. "I regenerated because I had to," he promised her as he took a step closer and opened his arms in an invitation for her to dive into them. "I was ambushed, Rose. Ambushed by very _very_ bad men who .." He huffed and looked down. "Amend that to one very bad man controlling several very bad – but magnificently designed and constructed I must say - robots carrying several very dangerous weapons. I got away from them once. I used my sonic screwdriver to scramble their electronics, and boom crash opera, it took down the whole group… I wasn't so lucky with the second ambush, though…."

"Doctor? Is it really you?"

He stopped and lifted his eyes to hers and gave her a hopeful and desperate stare. "That's me," he answered with a croaked voice. "The Doctor."

"You look so different," she said with a wet giggle that was obviously forced.

"But I'm still me," he assured her with a smile of his own – only this one far more genuine than hers. He reached out for her fingers and slowly took them into his hold. He moved a step closer to her and looked down into her terrified eyes. "Like I was after the gamestation. Same man, just a different package."

She sniffed and nodded, lifting her hand so she could slide her fingertips along his jaw. "What's the first word you said to me," she asked softly, seeking the final clarification.

"Oh Rose," he pleaded sadly. "This isn't your first rodeo. We've been through this before. You should be getting used to it by now." He watched her open her mouth to argue and lifted his head higher to speak the word. "Run," he offered firmly. "The first word I ever said to you was _Run_. I took your hand in the basement on Henricks, and I told you to run."

She let out a single laugh. "Run," she repeated. She gave him a smile. "Hello Doctor."

"Hello," he repeated back with a smile.

"This is mental," she said with a quiet whisper as she stepped into the circle of his waiting arms and rested her forehead against the valley between his pecs. "You coming home with a different face and all and expecting me to immediately know who you are." She felt his inhale and lifted her head to look up into his face. "Now imagine how you'd feel, Doctor, if it was me who came home with a different face and I expected you to just believe I was … well .. me."

He stiffened a little. His jaw hung low a second. He then snapped it shut to swallow. He then inhaled deeply and cleared his throat.

"Yes, Rose. Uhm. About that…."


	8. Confusion

A/N: It's been a while since I've uploaded a new chapter to this one... Sorry about that! Here's a new chapter for you.

I do hope that you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose heard the slight twinge of fear and worry inside the smile and voice of the Doctor … the _new_ Doctor. For a moment she ignored the gulp in his throat and the slight wince on his face so that she could take a second to appreciate and analyse this new him.

His appearance was quite youthful looking. Well. Not too youthful in appearance. He did seem to have that aged quality to him. Perhaps it was the way in which he seemed to stand in an analytical stoop before he'd approached her so warily only moments ago. Maybe it was the slight incoordination in his steps when he finally dared approach her. Perhaps it was the way that he shakily took hold of her head to hold her firmly against him when she stepped into his embrace, and the tender way in which his other arm held her around her back…

..No youngster would be so tender and so passionate at the same time.

She inhaled deeply and drew in a deep breath of him, hoping to still smell the man he was only a few hours ago. He was still there – her pinstriped Doctor – but there was a new scent to him that was so heady, and so powerful, and she shuddered.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently.

"I am," she said with a sigh. "S'long as I'm here with you, Doctor, I'm _always_ alright."

He loosened his hold on her to allow her to pull back slightly. When she looked up into his face, he couldn't help but smile as he let his fingertips trace along her cheek. "As long as I'm not being an insufferable git, am I right?"

A smile broke out wide across her face. "The chance would be a fine thing." She stepped backward and patted her hands slightly against his chest; one hand on each of his hearts. As she watched her hand's movements, she lifted her brows and pursed her lips as she spoke. "But. Well. You and _git_ seem to go together so well. Doesn't matter which body you're wearing."

He noticed with a furrow in his brow that she seemed reluctant to look up at him. Her eyes remained on the unfamiliar outfit that he was wearing, and of the orange-crimson stains that were still damp and sticky.

"Look at me, Rose," he breathed out with urging. "Please."

Her head nodded with tight and short movements, but her eyes didn't lift. She still focused on his chest, and the dirty manicure of her nails. "Gimme a mo."

He closed his eyes and nodded somewhat sadly. Part of him was frustrated that she seemed to be reluctant to accept another regeneration … but most of him understood the apprehension. Regeneration wasn't exactly commonplace in human society. She hadn't been raised with the knowledge of his people … but together they'd already been through this before.

"Rose," he urged again. "Please look up at me. I promise you, it's me."

"I-I know," she stammered with a gulp and a nod of her head. "I believe you, Doctor."

He dipped his chin to speak against her forehead. "Then what's the matter? Why won't you look up at me?" He gasped, panic in his voice. "Am I ugly this time around? Do I have warts, or scars, or horrible deformations?"

Rose's head shot up, and she looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh. No, Doctor! No. No. No." Her voice softened and a smile graced her lips. "You're very _young_ this time around. Young and … well … kind've cute in a teenage heart throb kind of way."

His face froze into a portrait of horror. "Oh. That doesn't sound very good at all."

She nodded eagerly, her eyes as wide as one of those teenaged girls who might fancy him as their heartthrob of the hour. "Oh. It's good, Doctor. Trust me."

One of his brows dropped to offer her a somewhat untrusting and perplexed expression. "Really?"

"Yeah," she said with her eyes still wide as they dropped back to her hands. "Yep. Very good."

He watched her eyes and head fall again to his chest, to focus again on the wriggling fingers of both her hands. He dipped his head again, and tipped his shoulders to try and force himself into her field of view. "Then what's the matter? I can't help but notice that you don't want to look at me." He cleared his throat and winced at how needy he sounded. "You always want to _look_ at me, Rose."

Her eyes didn't lift, but once again her brows did. Her mouth seemed to struggle to speak when she replied, and when she did her words sounded like they were rolling around marbles.

"It's not you, it's _me_ , Doctor." A pinch formed in between her brows.

He winced slightly. His voice was small when he asked the question that he already knew the answer to. "What about _you,_ Rose?"

"My hands," she answered quietly with distraction in her tone. She wriggled her fingers. "They seem. Um. They seem _different._ " She looked up at him with confusion across her brow. "Does that seem _weird_ to you?"

"Not really," he ventured with a tip in his shoulder and a waver in his voice as he wrung his hands together and looked everywhere but at her. "Regeneration, remember? Changing everything about me is pretty commonplace."

"Yeah," she breathed out with a nod as she looked back down to her fingers. "Strange. Because I always through I had short and chubby fingers. Bit of colour, but not much." She lifted her hand to analyse it a little closer. "But now they seem. Oh. I dunno. Long and slim, like I could play the piano with 'em or something."

"Yeah," he agreed on a breath. "There's something that you and I should really sit down and talk about."

She let her eyes wander up her arm. "My arms seem kind've different as well," she muttered more to herself than to him. "Lighter skin. More freckles." She held her arm out ahead of her and rolled her wrist to analyse it closer. "Longer."

The Doctor dropped his head guiltily and cleared his throat, but he said nothing. Rose was working things out on her own, and he wasn't going to interrupt her right now.

Rose finished assessing the length of her arms, and looked down along her belly. She let her gaze wander across the holes in her bodice surrounded by bloody stains and then looked up toward the Doctor.

"I was shot," she admitted curiously. "By a large musket. One that had big balls filled with smaller pellets." She swallowed and tilted her head to one side. The very edges of her eyes pinched. "I felt those pellets, Doctor. I felt the heat of them strike and then pierce through my body."

The Doctor reigned in his fury at her memory, and instead closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes to offer her an apologetic gaze. "Rose," he half whimpered out. "I'm so sorry."

Her head shook slowly. "You don't have anything to be sorry for, Doctor. _They_ attacked me. Not you." She pursed her lips and sniffed hard over the purse of them, and then let her lips fall to narrow with confusion. She shook her head and looked to him with question. "They attacked me, and then shot me."

"Is?" He tried to clear his dried throat, and only managed to be able to croak his question. "Is that all they did to you, Rose?"

"Is that _all_?" she questioned with a quiet, yet incredulous voice. "I would think that shooting someone in the chest is pretty severe, wouldn't you?"

He swallowed thickly. His voice was incredibly meek. "There are _worse_ things." He swallowed again, and winced over the lump in his throat. "Things that … that …" His wince deepened and he found himself unable to continue to voice his concern.

Fortunately he didn't have to.

Rose's eyes widened as the unspoken completion to his thoughts materialised inside her mind. She shuddered and then quickly shook her head. "Oh. No, Doctor. No. No. No. Threats were made, of course, but they decided to shoot me instead."

He gagged at that, and at the thought that he actually preferred the latter over the former.

"Rose. I'm. I'm very sorry." He took a step closer to her and opened his arms to pull her in against him once more. He didn't hide his look of rejection when she shook her head and took a step backward. He dropped his arms and let his upper body fall into a deep and defeated slouch. "I should have known better. I should have known that this was all going far too smoothly…"

"You couldn't have known," she interrupted firmly. "I fell for it as much as you did."

Anger crossed his features and he shook his head. His voice was low and demanded no argument. "I should have seen it," he growled. "I'm a Time Lord, Rose. I think I've had enough experience over almost a century of travel to be able to see when the people I'm surrounded by are full of nefarious intentions."

Her green eyes widened and she very lightly shook her head. Her voice was almost a whisper. "The day you do that, Doctor, is the day you've lost all faith – all _trust_ in the entire universe." She stepped toward him and pressed her hands over his hearts. Her eyes bored pleadingly into his. "That's not you. It'll _never_ be you."

Her cupped one of her hands in his and spoke reverently. "Your faith in me…" He sighed and lifted his other hand to cup her cheek. "It fuels me, Rose. Please don't ever lose it … and if I do _anything_ that makes you even think to question it…"

"I'll thump you," she interrupted with a smile. "Right good and hard, I will."

"I would expect no less from a woman bearing the Tyler name."

"And don't you ever forget it." She chuckled and looked back down at her hands. A crease formed in her brow as her head tilted away from the cup of his hand. "Doctor?"

He let his hands fall from hers, but held from stepping backward. Her hands where still on his chest, and he found himself pushing just that tiny bit to move closer toward her. He hoped that it would draw a smile, instead her frown of confusion only seemed to deepen. He didn't draw back.

"What is it, Rose?" he asked softly.

"I.." she swallowed. "I was shot."

"I'm sorry," he breathed apologetically.

"I should be dead."

"No," he growled passionately as he took an instant hold of both her hands in his. "No you shouldn't be."

Her eyes widened, but she didn't take them from her hands, now almost hidden inside his. "Yeah, Doctor. I should be. I know that. I get that." Her eyes lifted to his. "What I don't get is why I'm not dead."

He inhaled deeply and held that breath … and said nothing. He lifted a shaking hand to cup at the back of her head and coaxed her to press her forehead up against his. "The universe knows better than that," he admitted gravely on a voice barely audible. "If it took you from me, then – "

He was cut off by Rose pressing the length of her finger across his lips. She shushed him gently. "Don't go about making threats like that, Doctor. The universe is a woman, she'll call your bluff."

"How very misogynistic of you," he countered with a chuckle against her finger.

"Realist," she corrected on a breathy chuckle. "I'd much rather upset a bloke than a woman." She pulled back from him and gave him a wink. "Been there, you know, done that. The worst bullies on Earth are girls." She lifted her arms and hands again to analyse them studiously. Her voice was distracted when she continued. "And bossy. They're so bossy."

He shook his head and watched her resume her analysis. "Present company excluded I expect?"

She smiled, but kept her eyes on her arms. "No. I think I wholly represent all of the above." She quickly twisted her head to look at him with narrowed eyes. "I know," she half cheered. "I'm in heaven, aren't I?"

The gaped look of complete horror on his face made Rose Tyler chuckle. "I'm sorry?"

There was a terrified waver in her voice, but she managed to supress enough of her fear to feign amusement. "Heaven, Doctor. I have to be in heaven." She pursed her lips and nodded as she took a look around the console room. She held the purse in her lips for a long moment before releasing them with a wet smack to speak again. "It has to be. Heaven is a personal construct, yeah? Our own little tiny pieces of Utopia."

"Uh…"

She flicked her hand dismissively at him. "Just go with me on this, yeah?" She twirled a long and slow spin on the floor and properly took in her surroundings. "My heaven wouldn't involve clouds and togas or nothin' like that. No angels with wings and halos playing harps all day."

The Doctor coughed back his chuckle.

"Nope," she continued. "Me? My heaven is all this. Travelling. With you and the TARDIS, all across the universe." She looked back at him, her green eyes wide. "Couldn't think of anything better, really." Her moth stretched into a smile. "There really _isn't_ anything else that _could_ be Heaven to me."

The Doctor's brow flicked high. "I see," he breathed cautiously. "And so a younger incarnation born after being so viciously shot down, and a whole new TARDIS interior? Are you saying you didn't like the original _us_?"

Rather than an overt reaction to his words, her brows dropped to give a rather perplexed expression. "No," she answered slowly. "That's not right, because I loved that you. I loved how the TARDIS looked." She kept the crease in her brow when she raised her eyes to his. "So I don't understand that part of things." Her expression relaxed and she looked to the ground. "I don't get that bit at all."

He lowered his tone to one of sympathy "Rose…"

She held up a hand to stop him correcting her. "No. Doctor. Don't you _dare_ tell me I'm wrong." Her voice started to waver. "Because it's the only explanation I've got, yeah?"

"Rose…"

"I got shot," she yelled out emotionally. She lifted her bodice and poked both arms through the massive gaping and bloody hole. "Shot, Doctor. I was shot. There was pain, and there was blood, and there was … was…" She sniffed wetly and crumpled slightly for a moment to let out a frightened and confused sob. She straightened up quickly when she heard the swish of fabric that told her the Doctor was moving in to comfort her, and immediately composed herself. She held up her hand to prevent his approach. Her voice was calm and without emotion.

"They held a musket to my chest and pulled the trigger, Doctor. There was no surviving that." She inhaled deeply to maintain her composure. Her eyes widened and she tipped her head to one side to look at him across her cheek. Her voice remained calm and void of emotion. "If these is my dyin' thoughts before I blink out of existence completely, then let me 'ave them."

He stepped toward her again, this time able to take her into his arms. He guided the seat of her head to press her ear against his chest and stroked at her hair. "Is there anything else you need, then, Rose? Anything I can do or say in your last moments?"

She found herself chuckling lightly at his question. "Then this is it, yeah?"

"Nah, Rose Tyler," he answered with a shake in his head. "It's really only the beginning."

"There is one thing," she breathed out as she pulled her ear from the soothing sound of his hearts to look up into his face. "I know this is probably my own imagination and all, so I'm makin' it up myself, but… There is one thing."

He looked down into her face with a smile. "And what's that?"

"Can you tell me your name?" She quickly petted at his hearts with her fingers when she saw his eyes flare and his mouth open to protest. "Okay. Okay. Don't worry about it." She pursed her lips and looked at her fingertips once more. "It's not like it's my last wish or anythin'."

"You're not dead, Rose," he stated coolly. "You're not even dying."

Her face tightened up and she nodded her head. Emotion reared it's ugly head once more and she sniffed wetly before she spoke. "I know, Doctor. I know, and that's what's worryin' me."

"Why?" he queried with worry of his own inside his voice. "You should be thrilled that you're alive." He tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. In a voice much more like his previous self, he hissed through his teeth. "You're _so_ alive, Rose. More alive than you've ever been."

"And different, right?"

He stilled. He swallowed thickly. He shook his head. "You're my Rose Tyler," he affirmed firmly. "Nothing more. Nothing less. You're Rose. Rose Tyler."

"In a different casing," she murmured with a definite waver in her voice.

His breath hitched, but he said nothing.

"S'alright," she managed with a croak. "You don't have to confirm, deny, and try to hide each and every reflective surface of the TARDIS. I kind've figured it out already." She remained in his arms, and even tightened her hold around his hips to bury herself deeper into his chest. "Hard not to, really. I feel different. So different. Like everything's new and untested, and at the same time, I'm the same … know what I mean?"

"Yeah," he breathed out as he dropped his head to rest his cheek in her hair. "I do, Rose. More than most."

"I know what you meant, now," she continued with forced amusement. "You know, when you came out of the fires and the first thing you commented on was havin' new teeth." She sniffed wetly and gave him a moment to comment. When he didn't she continued on. "I've got more'n new teeth, though. It's more than just the physical appearance, isn't it?"

His voice was a whisper. "How do you mean?"

"I mean that I feel more than just a change in package," she clarified. "I feel it in my head, too. New sounds. New feelings. I can hear things I never heard before."

He worried slightly. "Such as?"

"Buzzing," she answered. "And singin' in my head. I know it's not just ambient noise around me that I'm pickin' up, because I'm not hearing it with my ears. I'm feeling it … hearing it .. in my mind." She pulled back to look up at him. "Am I makin' sense?"

He looked down at her and nodded. "Yeah, Rose. You are. I hear the same. All the time." He looked across at the console sadly. "At least I used to, anyway. Back when the Time Lords were alive, that buzzing sound you're hearing was a constant comfort. When they all died, that disappeared. My mind was empty…"

"Even from the TARDIS?" she queried with high brows. She watched his eyes shift back to her and shrugged. "That's her, isn't it? The singing I mean…"

"It is," he confirmed.

"Beautiful," she sang out softly. "Like the sound of birds on a spring day and the wind through the trees. Not annoyin, even though it's constant."

"Until she gets mad at you," he said with a chuckle. "Then it's most annoying." His chuckle smoothed out and his smile fell. "But that buzzing you hear," he said as he hooked her raven hair around her ear and settled his hand lightly around the back of her head. After a moment he pulled her back into his chest. "That's me. That's the sound of a fellow telepath hovering at the edges of your consciousness."

"It's kind've nice," she said with a smile as she nestled in against his chest. "Not annoyin like a mosquito, which I expect you would be if you were buzzing around the edge of my mind."

"Once you're used to it, you'll barely notice," he assured her gently as he brushed his lips through her hair. "I have to say. You're taking this awfully well."

"I'm really not," she admitted with a shudder that raced from head to toe. "But freaking out on you isn't going to help matters, no matter how much I want to." She swallowed and buried her nose into his chest. "I'm scared, Doctor. I'm scared and confused."

"Me too," he admitted. "But no matter how scared and confused either of us are, I'm here, Rose. I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm tired," she moaned pathetically into his chest. "So tired."

"Regenerating will do that to you," he stated on a sigh. "I've been through it eleven times, and I seem to get more exhausted with each change."

"It's just you getting old," she countered softly.

"Probably," he answered with a shrug as he pried the two of them apart, and then hooked his arm underneath her knees to lift her up in a hold against his chest. "Actually, that might be more than likely."

Rather than yelp or react with surprise to being picked up off the floor, Rose merely relaxed inside his hold. "I can walk you know," she chided with amusement.

"I know," he breathed out.

"You're not going to put me down?"

"No." He walked toward the stairs and looked up to the new landing that would take him to the bedrooms. "New TARDIS means new corridors and probably more things to trip over until we get used to it. Best you let me take you."

"So you can trip on something have fall down on top of me like some kind of cushion?"

He chuckled. "Something like that."

"Okay."

He took the new path toward the residential section of his ship and paused at the doorway to her room. "I'll figure out what happened, Rose." He looked down to her face. "I promise you."

"I know you will."

He kicked open the door and walked her toward her bed. "I won't let you down."

"You haven't yet," she said with a smile as he gently placed her atop the crumpled blue duvet of her unmade bed. "I don't expect you're gonna start now."

He lifted his hands to pry her arms from around his neck and frowned when he felt her vice-like grip on him. "Rose?"

"Stay with me?" she asked with renewed fear inside her voice. "You know. Just in case?"

"In case of what?"

"I dunno," she admitted pathetically. "In case this is all just a dream, and I don't.." her words halted immediately when his finger pressed against her lips.

"Don't' say that," he demanded firmly. "Don't you _ever_ say anything like that, you hear me? You're here. You're alive, and you're going to wake up tomorrow."

"Do you promise?"

"On the crest of Rassilon, I vow to you that in the morning you will wake up, I'll still be here, and you'll still be you."

She swallowed and nodded her head. "Okay, Doctor." She whimpered when he moved to pull away. "Please! Don't go."

"I'm not," he promised her. "I'm just going to take off these clothes and get comfortable."

She released him and shifted on the bed to give him room beside her. "Can I ask you a question, Doctor?"

He looked up from undoing his boots and gave her a wink. "As long as it isn't what my name is, then ask away."

"One day you'll tell me," she challenged him. "One day I'll know the real name of the Doctor."

"Yes," he agreed with a smile as he kicked off one boot and worked on removing the other. "One day you'll know my name. But that day isn't today."

"Does that mean you're going to marry me?" she asked cheekily.

He kicked off the other boot and pulled his shirt up over his head. In a moment he was on the bed beside her wearing a smile on his new face and drawing his fingertip down along her new face. "Shouldn't you buy me a drink first, before asking me a question like that?"

She yawned and closed her eyes. "I already bought you chips," she answered with a grin, her eyes still closed. "Back on our first date, remember?" She yawned once more, a wide cracking yawn that seemed to take up her whole face. "An' that was after I moved in with you and all. Makin' me a dishonest woman, you are."

He dragged the flat of his hand down along her hair. "Nope. You're the most honest woman I've ever met."

She chuckled, her eyes still closed, as she rolled over to put her back to him. She unashamedly reached back for his arm and pulled it over her waist to coax him into spooning up against her. "Good night, Doctor."

He moved up against her back and tucked an arm underneath the pillow. His other arm remained firm and secure around Rose's waist. "Good night, Rose."

He felt her body slacked inside his hold as she fell into her post regenerative slumber. He should have been doing the same thing, but his mind was reeling and running a mile a minute. He had no idea what had happened to make his human Rose Tyler regenerate like his people back on Gallifrey.

Once he felt her succumb fully to the healing coma, he carefully pulled himself out of bed and padded quietly toward the door. He stepped into the hallway and looked up toward the ceiling.

"I'm quite sure that this was your doing, and that you know _exactly_ what happened to Rose," he accused the TARDIS, who hummed angrily with denial to his charge. "Don't you even think about denying it, old girl." He looked toward his sleeping Rose, and silently closed the door behind him. Once he was sure she couldn't' hear him, the Doctor loudly clapped his hands and wrung them together as he moved quickly toward one of his many laboratories.

He was going to find out what happened to her.

…And then he was going to destroy old George …


End file.
